


jury duty

by ElisAttack



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexuality, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Catholicism, Coma, Fanart, M/M, Memory Loss, POV Bucky Barnes, Recovery, Religion, Russian Mafia, Slow Build, Tailoring, a questionable moustache
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: It’s hard to be soft, and even tougher to be tenderThey caught him down by the docks, where the blonde man would come to paint.  He sat with his legs in filthy water: lost, confused, and everything in between.  With one trigger word, he became it again.  With a few thousand volts of electricity, it forgot Brooklyn entirely.  With an application of liquid nitrogen and ice, it left the sixties behind.Or the one where the Winter Soldier learns how to be a person again.  The slow way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Presupposes that Bucky was still in cryo all through to the end of The Winter Soldier, and he's only defrosted when the straggling remains of Hydra bring him out before The Age of Ultron.
> 
> Just a quick disclaimer: there’s an actual St. Anthony of Padua Catholic church in Manhattan, but it is not the one in this fic. I chose to name this fictional parish after Anthony of Padua because he’s the patron saint of lost things, as well as amputees, and I found that strangely perfect. It just so happens that after I made my decision, I googled it, and lo and behold, there’s an actual church.

**Cornflower Blue**

The time is 11:46 AM.  The date is January 18, 2015.  The day is Sunday.  The soldier lies on the deserted floor of an office building across the street from St. Anthony of Padua parish.  The rifle is assembled, and it waits in silence.  In approximately twenty minutes the mission will emerge in a crowd of civilians.  He will stand tall, high above the rest, and that's when the soldier will put a bullet in his skull.

Time passes, the soldier knows this, even as it does not feel it.  Time is a luxury awarded to persons, and it is not a person.

The bell rings, signalling the end of the gathering.  The soldier looks through the scope.  The doors open after a few minutes.  Some civilians stay to chat, others rush off in a hurry.  It notices a mother and child holding hands, and the swinging of their arms between them.  Distracted for a moment, it stares, but then a flash of blonde.

The mission is as tall as the handler said he would be.  He's built, and he carries himself straight-backed: military, a soldier, perhaps even an officer.  A dark man stands beside him: a known associate, though he is not a target.

They talk amongst themselves, heads bowed together, but they make no motion to leave.  They appear to be waiting their turn to speak to the vestment-clad priest.  Civilians pass by the mission, smiling at him.  Some stop to exchange pleasantries.  The mission is known to frequent this parish on a weekly basis.

When it is time, the mission looks up, squinting into the glare of the sun.  Eyes that are so blue; and long, blonde lashes start a twisting in the soldier’s belly, a gripping in its chest.

The soldier inhales, exhales, inhales again, and pulls the trigger.

It rises from its crouch, and immediately disassembles the rifle with expert movements.  It never double checks its work, for it never misses.  Decades, a hundred freezes, and it has made every single shot it has taken.  It used to look—for blood, for confirmation—in the beginning, but no longer.

It packs up the rifle, then follows the planned escape route.  Down the elevator to the fifth floor.  Take a right, pass three corridors, then a left, then out to the employee lounge room.  It goes over to the west side, slides open a window, slips out, and falls and falls and lands with a crunch on packed snow.  An unmarked delivery van waits, back door sliding open to darkness within.  It climbs inside.

 

**The River**

Somewhere along an empty, winding road upstate the soldier cries out.  Its handler startles as it wraps its metal hand around his throat, crushing bones to pulp.  It kicks with force enough for the other handler to fly through the van, taking the door with him.  Bare trees like skeletons flicker past, and the interior floods with bright light.  The soldier blinks spots out of its vision.

The van swerves.  A gap in the trees, and a powerful river roars beneath a rusted bridge.  The soldier braces itself as the river rushes to meet it.  A jarring crash, shooting sparks, twisted metal, the deafening sound of a railing giving out.  Then, a sensation it remembers from long ago—falling without direction, without purpose—

It meets unforgiving ice with startling force.

 

**The Programming**

The soldier never looks after, because the programming breaks, and then _the chair_.

This time, the soldier did not need to look.

 

**Vodyanoi**

The cottage lies over the hill.  The soldier can see the heat pouring from it, rising waves in the frozen air.  It can smell the woodsmoke.

The soldier is in danger of hypothermia.  The serum can barely keep the darkness from creeping in on the edges of its vision.  It needs to get indoors to preserve functionality.  It needs warmth.

The man living in the cottage is pathetically easy to disarm, despite the soldier’s compromised state.  It wrenches the shotgun from his shaking grip and empties the chamber of shells, casting it aside.  It clatters on the kitchen’s flagstones.

“Please,”  the man begs, rheumy eyes fearful.  “I don't have anything valuable.”

“Does it look like it needs money?”  The soldier spits, its voice is rusty with disuse.  “Do you not see this?”  It plucks at its frozen clothing, its hair hangs in icicles.  There's a slowly healing laceration on its forehead.  When Hydra tracks the van to the river, they will find a submerged vehicle.  Its blood is smeared on the ice where it dragged itself away from yet another cold grave.

The man swallows, eyes darting around nervously, looking everywhere but at the soldier.  His hands are covered in liver spots, and the shaking is not only from fear.  This man is victim to a disease that claims the lives of many Americans.  The stroke occurred relatively recent, going by the pill bottles gathered on the kitchen table.

The soldier could kill this man by picking up the gun and aiming it at his head.  It wouldn't even have to pull the trigger.  His heart would do all the work.

“ _You are Russian_ ?”  The man asks in the mother tongue.  The soldier tilts its head to the side, waiting.  The man stares somewhere in the direction of the soldier’s left arm when he continues,  “ _The star_.”

“ _The star does not belong to it_ ,”  the soldier says in Russian.

“But you are.”  The man says, and he says it with relief.  He collapses in a nearby chair, and cracks open a bottle of pills, swallowing down one too many.  He doesn't attempt to reach for the shotgun.  “I am not to be harmed, Vasily will tell you himself.”

The soldier tips its head to the side, waiting.

“The Russians,”  the man says in exasperation, brow pulled tight.

“The mob.”

“Of course!”  The man exclaims, looking at the soldier strangely.  “Listen, let me call him up, you can speak with him.  You didn't know, it's alright, nothing will happen to you.”

“Because you know Vasily.”  The soldier says slowly.

“I made him the man he is,”  he says proudly.

“Do you know Hydra?”

“That from Greek mythology, kid?  Sure I took a class in college, once upon a time.”

The soldier nods sharply, deciding on a plan of action.  Hydra will come soon, they will track it to this cottage, to this man.  They must leave.  “You will not call Vasily.”  It unstraps the knife from its thigh, pointing it at the man.  “You will take it to Brooklyn.”

“Take what?”  The man says nervously, eyeing the knife warily.

“The soldier,”  it says.

 

**Vinegar Hill**

It escaped Hydra once before, in the sixties, but it does not remember this until much later.

It assassinated a woman, the mistress of a senator.  It strangled her from behind, making it look as though a client had done the deed.  Her body had fallen to the bathroom floor, and all it saw was blonde hair and pale pale skin, and it looked out the window, and there was home: Brooklyn.

It became he.

He climbed down the fire escape, dodged his handler, and didn't make the rendezvous point.  He tried to leave, tried to find his old building, and when he did, he crouched on the fire escape, hoping to recognize anything.  A blond man with a weak heart; a chipped china dish, glaze faded with time; a wooden table that no matter what anyone stuck to the legs, would always shake.  Instead, all he saw was a gingham couch, and a family of dark-haired immigrants.

They caught him down by the docks, where the blonde man would come to paint.  He sat with his legs in filthy water: lost, confused, and everything in between.  With one trigger word, he became it again. With a few thousand volts of electricity, it forgot Brooklyn entirely.  With an application of liquid nitrogen and ice, it left the sixties behind.

 

**Kolya**

“What’s your story, kid?”  The man says, his hands wrapped around the wheel of an ancient station wagon.  The last time the soldier was awake, wooden trim had been a common sight on automobiles, now it is rare.

The soldier says nothing.  The knife rests on its thigh, unsheathed, and every once in a while the man glances at it.  The soldier stares out the window at the passing countryside.  It wears a purple windbreaker, and chinos that smell faintly of mothballs.  Its wet combat gear is bundled in a trash bag on the back seat.

“Not talkative are you?”

The soldier grunts.

“I knew you were a soldier, right from the moment I saw you.”  The man wriggles a bony finger in the air.  “Want to know how I could tell?”

The soldier disagrees.  It knows the man first thought it was vodyanoi, from the curses and prayers he shouted the moment it kicked down his kitchen door.

“It’s not the metal arm, which,”  he whistles long and slow,  “Your superiors must have loved you if they paid for that.  Vasily would never, it’s bad business.  Grunts don’t get top shelf insurance.”

The soldier has met only one Vasily before, and would love the chance to bash his head in.  That Vasily was old, and likely dead by now, but according to the man this one is young.

“You haven't told me your name, kid.”

Weapons don’t have names.

“I’m Kolya,”  the man says,  “If you don’t give me a name I’ll just make up something.  The soldier glares, but the man continues, unrepentant.  “You look like a Stanislav.”  The soldier growls, showing its teeth.  “No, not Stanislav, too Pole for such a full-blooded Russian.”  He smirks, and he looks exactly like a wrinkled old fox.  “You’re Stas, yes, little Stasik.”  The mocking diminutive rolls off his tongue with a smirk.

The soldier points the knife at the man’s—Kolya’s—throat, but he just throws his head back in raucous laughter.  The soldier huffs, and turns back to the window.

 

**Dinner**

“Or perhaps you are a Bogdan.  The last Bogdan I knew made the best fucking borscht I have eaten in my life.  Can you cook, Bogdasha?”  Kolya asks as he drives on the Brooklyn bridge.

The soldier has a vivid memory of slicing the finger off the son of a diplomat, then into smaller bits, before wrapping it in thinly shaved tomato and lettuce leaf before dropping it on the diplomat's front step.

Its stomach roils.  It shakes its head.

“Shame.  Didn’t your mama teach you?  You can’t rely on a woman to do it for you, my wife couldn’t cook for shit.  On our honeymoon she made stroganoff, and I found an acrylic nail in a mushroom!  Listen, the only thing of a woman’s a man should ever eat is pussy.”

Quite a different kind of memory comes to the soldier then.  Its stomach does not protest this one.

“Look at you, I bet you get all the women you want.”  He sighs heavily.  “Some men are born fortunate.”

Fortunate is the last word the soldier would use to describe its situation.

“If you’re looking for work, Vasily could always use a man with a face, and an arm like yours,”  Kolya offers, his tone wry,  “If you ever tire of holding unsuspecting old men at gunpoint.”

“This is not a gun.”  The soldier twirls the knife, the blade catching the evening light.  “What kind of work?”

 

**An Occupation**

“Welcome to _Spick ‘N’ Span Dry Cleaning_ ,” a young woman recites as it opens the door, her eyes begging for death, until she notices Kolya walk in.  “Uncle Mykolasha?”

“Your replacement is here, Lana,”  Kolya claps the soldier on the shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle.

It grunts, and considers the benefits and disadvantages of removing Kolya’s hands permanently.  If only because it needs this position to stay off Hydra's radar, Kolya can keep his appendages.  They will be looking for a homeless man of its description.  The best disguise is for it to hide in plain sight, which means it needs an occupation, and an apartment.  Hydra will not expect it to be working for the Russian mob.

Kolya has provided it with two occupations—general labour at a construction site owned by the mob, and now this—as well as an apartment.  The apartment is infested with black mold, but with the soldier’s healing factor, it will not become an issue.  The soldier is satisfied with it, there are a selection of escape routes, and the sightlines are good enough.

The soldier’s data shows that once threatened, a person is less likely to provide assistance at a later date.  Kolya, however, has been more than willing.  The soldier is intelligent, it knows why Kolya has not attempted to have it killed.  It needs undocumented labour, and the soldier provides exactly that, without looking or sounding overly foreign.

“Oh, thank the Lord,”  the woman breathes in relief, reaching beneath the counter and producing a canvas bag, patches and buttons pinned to the front.  She slips around the counter and rushes past Kolya, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before she's out the door.  She takes off down the street like a bear is chasing at her heels.

“Lana has been running the shop while we look for a replacement,”  Kolya explains,  “Our former manager didn’t show up for his shift last week, and we cannot afford to close.”

The soldier looks at the empty racks, the filthy storefront, and knows right away that _Spick ‘N’ Span Dry Cleaning_ is a front for money laundering.

Kolya leads it over to the counter, where the soldier slips out from under his arm.  It gingerly lowers itself onto the creaky chair behind the counter.  There’s a nut or two missing from the back, and it will soon break under the soldier’s weight.  It makes sure to avoid putting weight on the backrest.

‘Kolya leans over the counter, a deceptively kind smile on his face.  “You have a family, Ilyusha?”

The soldier ignores Kolya, looking at the monitor displaying security footage from the front and back entrances to the shop.  It is easily the cleanest, and newest thing in the shop.

“A wife?”  The soldier snorts, and Kolya continues with raised brows, digging for leverage he can hold over its head.  “No?  Really, handsome as you are?  Maybe a beautiful child with icy eyes as yours?”

The soldier says nothing.  It will have to install such a system at its apartment, then hack into the feed at the construction site to monitor that too.  It will need a burner phone, then someone to install the software.  It will also need sufficiently convincing false identification.

“And here I thought we were friends,”  Kolya sighs,  “You ever gonna tell me your name, _soldat_?”

“It has no name,”  the soldier says,  “Where can it get one?”

 

**A Name**

“Jimothy McJohnson,”  the sweaty little man says,  “I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got.  If you were a few inches shorter you could have had Nick Brown.  Shit out of luck, my friend.”

The soldier holds the passport up to the fluorescent light, examining the official seals, while the forger’s excessively pierced assistant blasts its New York State Driver’s licence with a heat gun.  The quality is satisfactory.  Hydra could make better, but considering that this forger works out of the back of a computer repair shop smelling faintly of sewage, the mediocre quality is to be expected.

The soldier’s face stares back at it from the small picture.  Its new buzz cut makes its cheekbones look sharp as a blade.  It will have to feed itself better to smooth out the intensity of its features.  The best disguise is often the simplest; a full face, a shaved head, perhaps even a moustache.

The soldier pays the man from the envelope of money given to him by Kolya.  It knows it wasn’t given out of the kindness of his heart, the soldier will have to pay it back with interest.  The soldier is not worried about entrapment, it knows it can free itself if it needs to.  The problem is Hydra.

As far as it can see, Vasily’s organization is composed primarily of descendants of Russian-Jewish immigrants.  Hydra boasts the same discriminations they had seventy years ago, they will not look for it here, in Little Odessa.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Typical Atypical Day**

The soldier opens its eyes well before the crack of dawn.  The closet where it sleeps is pitch black, and the scent of mildew permeates the air.  The chair it sits on wobbled when it bought it from the thrift store, but cardboard wedged beneath one of the legs fixed that flaw.

It listens for a few minutes.  Its neighbours to the top and right slumber on peacefully, and the one to the left has already left to walk her dog.  The apartment below is unoccupied.  It slides open the closet door, and begins its day.

It feeds itself the proper caloric content required for the weight gain it intends.  An entire loaf of whole wheat bread, and four eggs, cracked directly into its mouth—salmonella is dismissible.  It turns on the television, watching a morning show.  It listens as the hosts speak of popular trends, various viral videos of hapless cats, and interviews with national spelling bee champions.  It prepares its lunch for the day, a carbonara recipe it learned from yesterday’s program.  Tomorrow it will prepare the recipe it learns today.

The soldier slides the tupperware into a aluminium lunch box, and snaps the clasps closed.  For all intents and purposes, it looks to be the lunch of a normal, working-class American man, nothing suspicious about it at all.

At 4:25 AM it takes a warm shower, then shaves its face in the cracked mirror above the sink.  The shave is close—the heat from the water having opened the hair follicles on its chin, and it snips at the overgrown hairs on its moustache.  It wipes the soap from its face, and looks at its reflection in the mirror.  It lifts the corners of its mouth trying for a smile like the one on the morning show host’s face, but it fails.  The moustache makes it look personable, but something else is wrong, it cannot make it work.  At 4:37 AM, time is up, and it must leave for the day.  It will try again tomorrow.

It locks its door with the keys it was given, but arms the security system with a flick of its finger over the phone in its pocket.  The lock is just for show.  If anyone attempts to break in, the soldier will know right away.  It has installed unhackable bugs, and cameras into its apartment, right over strategic entry points.  Eventually it will design and install a trap system to neutralize any intruders.

The elevator is out of order, and it takes the stairs.  It meets its dog-walking neighbour in the lobby.  The dog runs up to him, and the soldier pats it dutifully on the head.  It nods its head to its neighbour, as she calls out a greeting.  It can no longer hide beneath its hair, but it is glad for it.  It is the act of hiding that is innately suspicious.  It looks its neighbour in the eye just long enough not to be suspicious, but not long enough for her to assume it has a friendly or sexual interest in her.

The sun has still not risen as it walks the sidewalk a few blocks to the construction site where it will work a five hour shift.

It has stored its combat clothing in the vent in its bedroom, where it has taped a Smith & Wesson it acquired from one of Vasily’s vendors.  It wears proper steel toed work boots, a quilted work coat, and hardy denim jeans.

“Jimmy, how’s it going?”  Its coworker Marcel smiles.  He occupies the locker beside Jimothy ‘Jimmy’ McJohnson, and thinks that the soldier’s name is ‘hilarious’.

“Fine,”  the soldiers grunts, as it does every morning after Marcel asks a similarly worded question.

“What’d you make for lunch today?”  He asks, pulling off his sweatshirt, trading it for a plain work flannel.  The soldier finds itself distracted by the dark skin, and even darker hair revealed on Marcel’s stomach as his t-shirt catches on the edge of the sweatshirt, pulling it up.  It tears its gaze away.

“Spaghetti carbonara,”  it answers shortly, snapping its locker shut with a twist of its mouth.  It should not be looking at Marcel’s stomach:  that is not something Hydra taught it, that is a lesson learnt from sometime, and somewhere else.

Marcel whistles,  “I wish Gloria had time to cook, but between the kid, and her job, she has less free time than I do, and God knows I could burn water.”  Marcel laughs, eyes crinkling, and the soldier realizes what is missing from its smile.  “You used to be a chef or something?”

“Or something,”  the soldier says, clipping on its hard hat.  It considers trying Marcel’s own eye crinkling technique back at him, but eventually decides it best to practice in the mirror first.

The soldier finds the work easy, even as the others are sweating, despite the chill in the air.  It keeps its prosthesis hidden behind work gloves, and only takes them off when early lunch rolls around.  Only the foreman, and Marcel know about the prosthesis.  The foreman because Kolya told him, and Marcel because he always takes lunch with the soldier, and it would be even more suspicious if it ate with gloves on.

The first time Marcel saw its hand, he asked if it was a veteran.  The soldier thought it easier to agree rather than invent some other story.  Now, Marcel thinks it is a decorated war vet who must have saved the life of a diplomat or two for it to have gotten such a state-of-the-art prosthesis.  It cannot help but wonder what Marcel would think if he knew the titanium was welded to its scapula while it was still awake.

“Hey, just wondering…  Feel free to ignore me if you don’t want to answer.  You religious at all, Jimmy?”  Marcel asks, taking a bite out of his sandwich.  The smell of tuna fish drifts over to its nose, and it frowns.  Perhaps it should make a larger portion of lunch tomorrow for Marcel, just so it doesn’t have to smell canned fish again.

At first the soldier says nothing, and Marcel moves on, changing the subject, but a memory comes to it, as clear as day.

It's kneeling in a church, its head bent over folded hands, mouth moving along to Latin prayers it does not understand, but knows by heart from repeated exposure.  There’s a familiar, warm body beside it in the same pew, pressed all along its side from shoulder to thigh, but the closeness does not feel oppressive.  It wants to look, to see who it is letting so close, but it does not turn its head.  It whispers its prayers ever more fiercely.

“Catholic,”  it says.

Marcel smiles, glad it answered.  “Gloria’s gran was Baptist.  She used to take her to mass every Sunday when she was a kid.  I used to tag along too,”  Marcel shrugs,  “Nothing better to do on Sunday mornings in Brooklyn, I guess.”

“You knew each other when you were kids,”  the soldier says quietly.

Marcel grins widely, chuckling to himself.  A bit of sandwich falls from his mouth.  “Yeah, childhood sweethearts, y’know.  Knew I was in love with her before I knew what love really was.”

The soldier stirs its lunch with the fork, mixing the pancetta and sauce thoroughly with the pasta.

“Practicing Catholic?”  Marcel asks.

“Used to be,”  the soldier says, putting its food in its mouth, and then there’s nothing more to say.

Marcel works a few hours more after lunch.  He says goodbye to the soldier, returning to the site.  The soldier punches out, and walks back to its apartment where it grabs a shower, washing off the grime.  It pulls on a freshly pressed button-down, a v-neck sweater on top—like it saw on the morning show—before it leaves in the other direction for its second job.

It unlocks the front door of _Spick ‘N’ Span Dry Cleaning,_ flicking on the bright, and faintly greenish fluorescent lighting.  It checks the security feed, quickly rewinding the tape from the night before, sharp eyes searching for any threats, but other than a single stray cat, there’s nothing.  It deletes the footage to make room for tonight.

It sweeps the storefront for lack of anything better to do.  It never gets any customers.  If someone just so happens to come in, they take one look around, and leave again.

It finds a bottle of fumey glass cleaner that must have been manufactured the last time the soldier was out of cryo, and uses it to work away at the decades of thick grime covering the front glass.  There’s a rusted security gate covering the windows on the outside, and it finds it very difficult to reach through the bars to clean.

The soldier does not know why it is trying so hard, when all Kolya expects of him is to man the front desk, and pretend this is a legitimate business.  But, it feels wrong to sit on its ass, watching the security feeds for all the properties it monitors, when it could be earning the wages it is paid.

A few of the moustache hairs it missed in its trim irritate its skin.  It scratches at its nose, and decides that it should probably learn how to use the dry-cleaning equipment in the back.

The soldier pulls out its phone and connects to the cafe WiFi a two stores down.  A few days back, Marcel mentioned never having to pay for internet access because he lived right beside a Starbucks.  The cafe never changes the password, and the soldier had to drop by only once to buy a peppermint latte—which was too sweet for consumption—and then it had unlimited access to the internet.

It figures out the models of the machines it has in the back, and brings up manuals on their operation.  They all date from the late nineties, and seem to have never been used.  The solvent cleaning machine still has the plastic film on its body.

It watches instructional videos, and by the time it has to close up for the evening, it is confident in its knowledge of the various machines.  The only problem is that the chemicals in the storage room are all out of date, and a few of them—according to its research—are carcinogenic.

The soldier sighs, and decides to leave that problem for tomorrow.  It records sales—zero—in the ledger, and then leaves it in the lockbox outside the storefront, before locking up for the night.  It will be adjusted to whatever amount the accountants deem believable come morning.

It returns to the apartment, the sun setting on the horizon, bathing the streets in reds, pinks, and shadows.  Scattered flakes of snow fall, and the soldier observes its surroundings.

A cat watches it from across the street, sitting in the gutter of a garage.  Its tail swishes in the air, and its coat is mangy and coarse.  It is the cat from the security footage: a stray.  It watches for a few moments longer before ducking back into the shadows.

That night the soldier feeds itself a dozen eggs, cracked into a chipped jug for convenience’s sake, taking it to the small window.  It checks its sightlines for anything out of the ordinary; strange vehicles, strange people, but nothing.  It finishes its dinner, relieves itself, and brushes its teeth.  It opens the closet, sits down in the chair, and shuts its eyes.

 

**The News**

The soldier wakes in its closet, the same time as always, but today there’s no need for it leave the apartment.  Sunday is its day off.  The construction site is closed, as is the dry cleaners.  Sunday is an expected day of rest, so the soldier rests.

It sits in front of the television with a mug of eggs and watches as the breakfast program finishes, and the morning news starts, graphics flashing over the screen.

“Breaking news,” the coiffed news anchor says with gravity, despite the faint smear of lipstick on his collar, “The gunman that shot Captain America has not yet been identified, but police are looking to the recent uptick in street violence with suspicion.”

The soldier finds itself in the kitchen, bent over the sink, throwing up its breakfast.

It decides that perhaps this body is not as immune to salmonella as it thought.

 

**Trevor, et al.**

There's a family owned diner at the corner of the street, and that's where the soldier goes.  It needs its daily required caloric intake, but it will not be able to keep down the eggs any longer.

The bell jingles as it walks in, and a tired-looking, very pregnant waitress sends it a thin lipped smile, holding up her finger for it to wait.  She bends over a pudgy faced child with a shocking head of hair, sitting on a chair behind the counter.  The child looks at the soldier with a sour expression as the waitress feeds them runny oatmeal.

“Hey,” she says, eventually walking over, wiping her hands on her apron,  “What can I get you?”

It looks at the menu board and picks a set that doesn't appear to have any eggs in it.  “The meat lovers special,”  it says, allowing its eyes to crinkle, then adds,  “Please.”

She seats the soldier by the window, which leaves it feeling very exposed.  The diner has a full stretch of windows all along its north side.  Across the street sit various businesses, including a grocers where the soldier purchases its food supply.  The older woman who runs it out never fails to mention that one day the soldier will eat so many eggs it will turn into a fox.  She will no longer have to worry about such an impossibility.

Beside the grocers lies an adult video store with neon lights and images of half naked women.  It’s an eyesore, according to the grocer, but what really bothers the soldier is the apartment building under development beside it.  Construction has been abandoned over the winter, so it sits empty.  Hydra agents could be lying in its shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to neutralize the soldier.

A bead of sweat trails from its hairline, down to its temple.

The waitress’ child slides into the booth on the other side of the table.  Their gender is indeterminate, and their hair is approximately double the size of their head.  They deposit a sticky handful of breakfast cereal on the unsanitary table, and then proceed to pop the pieces individually in their mouth, all the while making unnerving eye contact with the soldier.

The soldier narrows its eyes.

If the child wasn't obviously unaffiliated with the KGB, the soldier would think they learned advanced interrogation techniques in the Red Room.

The soldier stares back at the child.  They wear a pair of overall stained with splashes of primary poster colours, and a little bit of oatmeal stuck to the corner of their mouth.  The waitress seems to have failed in the oatmeal endeavor, and given them sugary cereal instead.

“You’re real funny-looking,”  the child eventually says, bits of cereal falling from their mouth, reminding the soldier all too much of Marcel.  They even have the same nose shape.

Marcel mentioned that his wife works at a diner, that he has a young son, and a baby on the way.  This is an unexpected coincidence, but not unwelcome.

The soldier glances down at itself, at its sweater and button-up combination, and thinks it looks exactly like all the men it sees on American television.  “What makes you say that?”  The soldier asks, needing to know what has it looking out of the ordinary to this child’s eye.

The child points to its upper lip, to the moustache.  The soldier touches it.  “What is wrong with it?”

“It looks like you’ve got a caterpillar on your face,”  the child says solemnly.

“Trevor!”  The waitress—Gloria, she must have just clipped on her nametag—sweeps forward, a tray in one hand, coffee decanter in the other.  She sets the tray in front of the soldier, then pours it a cup of black coffee.  She waggles a finger at her son, who looks up at her with big eyes, the very picture of innocence.  She turns to the soldier, an apologetic look on her face.  “I’m sorry for him.  Sometimes I think I raised an animal.  Do you want sugar or milk in your coffee?”

“No, thank you,”  the soldier says,  “He’s a good kid, don’t go hard on him.  He gives good fashion advice.”

She shoots a vibrant glare in Trevor’s direction, but he doesn’t even see it.  He’s looking out the window, a brilliant smile on his lips.  “Papa!”  He exclaims, sliding off the bench, and running for the door.  It opens, and Marcel swoops down, picking him up, pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek.

“How’s my favourite little monkey,”  Marcel says, swinging Trevor up so he’s balanced on his hip,  “I hope you’re not making trouble for your mother.”

“No more than usual,”  Gloria says.

“Jimmy!  That you?”  Marcel grins widely at the soldier.  ”I almost didn’t recognize you without the hard hat.  What’re you doing here?  Your cooking’s gotta be putting Aiden’s to shame.”

“Eggs went bad,”  the soldier says, cutting into a slice of bacon exactly how it watched in an etiquette video.

“You’re not eating eggs,”  Marcel points out astutely, then winces,  “Oh man, if they’re old you gotta test if they float in water before you try cooking with them.  How bad was it?”

“Marcel,”  Gloria swats him on the shoulder,  “Can’t you see the poor man’s eating?”

“It’s okay,”  the soldier says.  It takes a sip of its coffee and grimaces at the bitter taste.  “Threw it up in the kitchen sink.”

Marcel looks queasy.  “Yikes.”

“Ignore my husband,”  Gloria rolls her eyes.  She holds her right hand out to the soldier, gaze flitting briefly over its metal hand.  “Gloria Bell.”

The soldier shakes her hand.  “Jimothy McJohnson.”

She blinks, opening and closing her mouth a few times, before saying, incredulously,  “Excuse me?”

“I’ve seen his license, babe,”  Marcel says,  “It’s legit his real name.”

Trevor wiggles his index finger over his upper lip in the motion of a crawling caterpillar.  Thankfully neither of his parents see.  The soldier bites into a juicy piece of sausage, and decides to make a habit of coming to the diner on Sundays.

 

**The Singer**

A customer comes in while the soldier is sweeping, and it’s so surprising that it forgets to say the usual spiel.

“Hey,”  she says with a smile,  “I saw your sign outside, you guys do alterations?”

The soldier says nothing for a few moments, and her smile slowly fades to a frown.  She’s young, in her mid twenties, and wearing a stewardess’ uniform.  A garment bag hangs from her arms.

The soldier stares at her.  It hasn’t had a customer in over two weeks, after an elderly woman had stopped by with a bag full of clothes that needed ironing, her hands twisted with arthritis.  The soldier had used the vacuum ironing board, and pressing machine, and got it all done in little less than an hour.  It had only charged her a fraction of the price for the service, considering its employers are accustomed to the business bringing in a deficit.

The soldier nods, finding its tongue.  “It does say that.”

“Okay….?”  The woman says, looking around the store.  The soldier has cleaned, and polished ever surface until it gleams, but there are still no clothes on the revolving racks.  She frowns.

“What do you need altered?”  The soldier asks, distracting her.  It leans the broom against the wall, and walks behind the counter, patting the surface.  The woman lies the bag down, and unzips it.  She has quite the collection of blazers.

Blushing, she says.  “I recently lost a bit of weight, I just need them taken in around the arms, and in the middle.”

The soldier manages to dig up a canvas measuring tape from one the drawers, finding it next to a dessicated cockroach, which it does not mention to the woman.  Noting down on a scrap of paper, it takes every conceivable measurement it may need.  By the time it is done, the woman looks bored out of her mind, and like she’s regretting her choice of tailor.  She pays for the alterations, and exits in a rush, leaving the soldier with six blazers, and a week until she returns to pick them up.

The soldier looks down at its notes blankly.  There’s an ancient treadle sewing machine tucked away in a storage closet, next to an unboxed serger, as well as cases of thread, and pins.  Theoretically it has everything it needs to do alterations, it just doesn’t quite have the know how.  It watches videos, which help it realize it needs a dressmaker’s dummy.  It manages to dig up one in the crowded basement.  Though it smells faintly of cigarette smoke, it isn’t noticeable to unenhanced senses.

It drags the sewing machine out of the closet, but once it hits the ceramic tile at the front, the metal wheels rattle like gunfire.  The soldier gives up, and just picks up the machine, carrying it easily in its arms, setting it behind the counter.

_Your father wanted to buy a Wheeler & Wilson number 9, can you believe it, Jimmy?  But I told him it was a Singer treadle, or it was nothin’. _

The machine is easily the oldest thing in the shop.  It does not run on electricity, but instead a wheel and belt, attached by pitman arm to a treadle.

The old leather belt crumbles to pieces when it turns the wheel, but the soldier pulls its own belt from its pant loops, and cuts it into thin ribbons with scissors.  It attaches the ends together with heavy staples it pries from the baseboards then bends into shape with its metal fingers, and in few short minutes, it has a functional machine belt.

The soldier slips it onto the machine with some difficulty, and expletives.  It places a bobbin onto the spool, and figures out how to thread the shuttle through an instruction manual it finds in one of the machine drawers.  It sprays some grease on the dry looking cast iron parts, and by the time it has to close for the night, the machine is in ready working order.

 

**The Cat**

The mangy stray sits on its building’s front steps.  The soldier opens the door, and blocks its entry with a foot, grocery bags in both hands.  It climbs up to its apartment, and chooses a sturdy melamine bowl, then returns downstairs.

The cat looks at it suspiciously as it sets the bowl down on the grass, away from foot traffic.  It cracks open a bottle of the lactose-free milk it purchased earlier, and pours it into the bowl.

When it leaves for work the next morning, the bowl is empty.

 

**Alterations**

The soldier sticks the final pin into the first blazer, and studies its handiwork.  It goes over the measurements a second time, before pulling the blazer off the dress form, laying it flat on the worktable.  It picks up the seam ripper, and gets to work.  The motion of tugging and cutting soothes it into a rhythm.  Its mind drifts as it works.  It cannot help but feel as though it has done this sort of work before, impossible as it is.  Hydra would have never taught the soldier tailoring.

The acetate lining pulls away from the herringbone fabric, and the soldier lays the pieces out on the table.  It measures, and marks with chalk, then pulls out the pins with its metal hand, placing them to the side.  The measuring tape goes around the back of its neck as it looks at the scraps of deconstructed blazer on the worktable.

_Iron the edges flat, Jimmy._

The soldier does, then it digs out a ruler, and a pair of shears, cutting away the excess fabric.

It sits in front of the sewing machine, its feet resting on the treadle.

_Spin the balance wheel, then pump forward with your feet._

The soldier snaps the fabric under the foot clip, and starts the machine with a spin.  It guides the fabric carefully, but the tension is correct, so the thread never snags.  It stitches all the parts of the torso that need to be stitched, and takes in the arm pieces to suit the circumference of the customer’s bicep, with a little bit of room if she plans on doing any sort of arm waving while wearing it.  It snips the excess thread at the end.

_Two rows of tacking stitches into the joining, Jimmy, or the gentleman will have a hole in his armpit._

It lays in the recommended tacks, then joins the arms to the torso.  The soldier slides the blazer back onto the form, and takes final measurements, finding the job done to its satisfaction.

When the customer returns to retrieve her six blazers, she tries one on, requesting a mirror.  There is none, so she asks the soldier to take a picture of her wearing it.  It pulls out its phone, snaps the picture, and shows it to her.  She smiles, and the soldier lays them back into the garment bag, sweeping its gun callused hands over the soft cashmere, the rough wool, the silky acetate one final time before zipping them up.

It gives them over.

The customer wishes it a good evening, and promises a good Yelp review.  The soldier stares down at its hands.

[Tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/172706547872/art-for-jury-duty-they-caught-him-down-by-the)

 

**Warfare**

“Isn't there anything else I could call you?”  Gloria asks, refilling its coffee mug,  “You don't seem like a Jimmy, and I'm not touching your full name with a ten foot pole.  No offence.”

The soldier pours an excess of milk into its cup.  “None taken.”

The diner is empty of people.  Trevor is with his grandfather, and Marcel is working.  Only Gloria and the soldier are in the dining area.  The kitchen is occupied by Aiden, the fry cook.  He’s a veteran, the soldier can see it in his posture, in the noticeable limp, and in the scarring that peeks out from beneath his shirt collar.  Vietnam.  The soldier can practically smell the jungle on his skin, the fire, and all the blood.

The first time it saw Aiden, the soldier wondered if it had been the one that fired the shell that lost him his leg.  It does not help that Aiden looks at the soldier’s prosthesis with something akin to longing, but still never fails to pop out of the kitchen to wish it a genuine good morning every Sunday.  Aiden is the only person the soldier cannot make itself look properly in the eyes.

“How about Jim?”  Gloria asks, sitting in the chair the soldier pulled up to the table for her.  She’s much too large to fit into the booth.  She’s also much too large to be working, yet here she is.  The soldier sat her down the moment it came in, and got to making its own coffee while she yelled out instructions.  It had brought the decanter to the table, but she insisted on at least being ‘able to pour the damned coffee, Jimmy,’ which is how the topic of the soldier’s name came up.

The soldier shrugs.  “If you’d like.”

“What about what you want?”

The soldier chuckles, reaching for the newspaper Gloria laid out on the table.  “Jim is fine.”

_I don’t know what your ma was thinking, naming you after James Buchanan.  He was a terrible president, y’know.  Pro-slavery, not to mention that his inaction brought about the Civil War._

“What?”  The soldier looks up, confused.

“I said, I don’t know what your parents were thinking, naming you Jimothy, that’s a terrible name.”  She rubs her belly distractedly.  “No offence, once again.”

“None taken,”  the soldier repeats in a whisper.   Ducking its head, it looks over the headlines, flipping through the paper.  One catches its eye.

It’s an image is of a priest in a black cassock, standing in front of a crowd of reporters.  The cutline gives a statement from one Father Leland:  ‘I’d ask for your prayers, but sometimes prayers are not enough.’

_Violence begets violence, James, war is no small thing._

“What a shit-show, huh?”  Gloria says.

“What’s happening?”  The soldier asks.

“Have you been living under a rock?”  Gloria asks, her brows climbing up to her hairline.

The soldier might as well be.  It watches its morning show, but it avoids the news like the plague.

“That priest has been saying this stuff for years.  It’s only after he got Captain America’s brains blown out all over the front of his vestments that he’s finally getting media attention.”  She rolls her eyes.  “Course it takes the attempted murder of a national hero for the media to tear their cameras away from the giant mantises in Midtown, and the killer teddy bears in Jersey, and start paying attention to the shit happening to kids at street level.”

“Attempted murder,”  the soldier parrots back, its stomach twisting.

Gloria sighs.  “Jesus, Jim, get out more, watch the news, read a paper on the regular.  Captain America’s been in a coma for months now, and the whole city is collectively losing their shit.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's been a while, returning readers. Just so you know, I increased the amount of chapters to six, since this one was getting close to 10k, and that's just too much. Chapter four should be up in a day or two, I just have to write one more segment, and then edit.
> 
> Also, this fic now has art, cause I can't not marathon tv and draw at the same time. As it turns out, shaving one’s head, and growing a moustache is a pretty effective disguise. I had a tough time making Bucky look like Bucky...
> 
> I drew something for chapter two, if you wanna go back and check it out, it’s embedded in the story. Happy reading!

**The News, Pt. ii**

Father Leland is thirty-seven years old, he holds an bachelor’s in Philosophy, a master’s in Theology, and has been voted Manhattan’s sexiest man of the cloth three years in a row by an unofficial Twitter poll.  He is also on the soldier’s television screen, talking to the soldier’s favourite morning show hosts. It is so disconcerting, it cannot even properly appreciate the artistry of Ben Marshall’s lavender cardigan and mint button-up.

The last time the soldier saw Father Leland in motion, it was through the lens of its scope.

Father Leland makes his ‘infamous’ Irish stout stew during the culinary segment.  It’s a dish he claims to serve all his friends. He wears his clerical collar, and a hot pink apron, black hair combed in a part that makes him appear open and inviting.  When he smiles, his eyes crinkle at the corners even more than Marcel’s do.

The soldier goes through the motions and writes down the ingredients for its grocery list, even though its fingers are numb.  Come Monday, it’s going to be eating a stew that Captain America probably ate. It feels sacrilegious, as though it is stealing from this priest.  The soldier tried to kill this man’s friend, and now it will be eating his stew.

The soldier taps the pen against the frown on its lips.  It’s not even sure if the grocers stocks Guinness.

After the culinary segment, the hosts interview Father Leland.  The soldier has become intimately familiar with the interview segment of the program.  Usually they conduct ‘safe’ interviews: kids, dogs that rescue people from wells, philanthropists, nothing that could be even remotely political.  This is a huge divergence, and the soldier feels unmoored.

It does not turn off the television.

“Some would say that Captain America himself is a weapon,”  Tracy Byrd points out. She’s always been the more serious of the two hosts.  While Ben Marshall makes a joke out of every other thing he says, Tracy conducts her interviews with the severity of a nun.

“Steve Rogers is a person, and people are are not weapons,”  Father Leland says, “Weapons are inanimate objects that have no free will of their own.  The shield Steve carries is dangerous, of course, but he does not take it into civilian populations without cause.  He would not harm another unless it was absolutely necessary.”

Tracy bobs her head at Father Leland’s answer, but says,  “I’m sorry, Father, but I find that hard to believe. The rampant destruction of Manhattan during the Chitauri Invasion has many of our viewers doubting your confidence in the Avengers.  The Hulk is undoubtedly a weapon. Banner caused billions of dollars worth of damage with his bare fists. Insurance premiums skyrocketed, and where were the Avengers then? Stark has such little care for collateral damage, one can even say he benefits off destruction.”  Her lips twist wryly, and her eyes glint. “Some of his shareholders have stakes in the company that insures most Manhattan properties. Isn't that a conflict of interest?”

“I wouldn't know anything about how Mr. Stark runs his business, but I understand where you’re coming from, Tracy,”  Father Leland says sadly, “Everyone lost something during the Chitauri Invasion, whether it be another person, or a home, or even just a sense of safety.  New Yorkers were pushed to their limits two years ago. Even now, we’re still toughing it out.”

“That’s what New Yorkers are famous for,”  Ben points out with a badly timed grin, “Toughing it out.”

Father Leland frowns.  “If there’s one thing we all can agree on its that the situation would have been so much worse without the Avengers.  Without the Hulk the damage would have been in the trillions. Without Tony Stark, who bravely dealt with a nuclear missile that the World Security Council—a council we now know was infiltrated by Hydra—fired at us, Manhattan would be little more than a crater on the map.”

“What are you saying, Father Leland?”  Tracy says with a frown.

“I’m saying that a Leviathan destroyed half of my parish,”  he says, eyes glittering with unshed tears, “It killed two of my colleagues—two of my friends.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Father,”  Tracy reaches out and pats him on the hand, he smiles sadly at her in thanks.

“Steve Rogers showed up the day after the invasion, not as Captain America, but as volunteer search and rescue,”  he says with strong conviction, determination in the steely tone of his voice, “He didn’t come with a news crew, or reporters, just himself.  He was there for us in our time of hardship. He still is. How could I call myself a man of God if I was not there for him in his?”

A lump forms in the soldier's throat.

_Let’s just get one thing straight, bud.  Who would I be, heck, how could I consider myself a good person if I didn’t stick up for the little guy?_

“What was it like, being such good friends with Captain America?”  Ben asks, stars in his eyes.

Father Leland sends a sharp glance Ben’s way.  “What _is_ it like, you mean?”  Ben nods, properly chastised.

The soldier studies the smile that slowly slides over the priest’s face.  A halting breath catches in its chest. This man knows Steve Rogers—has known him for two long years.  Vows of chastity are easily forsaken, and the smile the priest wears is familiar and gentle. The soldier hates this feeling, this _envy_ it can do nothing about.  Such a useless emotion, but so very persistent.

It wraps its arms around its chest.  “It only knows of Steve Rogers because it tried to kill him,”  the soldier whispers to itself, but the words feel like an untruth.  Its mind has never been constant, but when it comes to Steven Grant Rogers, it is even less reliable than usual.

“Steve and I have been working together on a program to help at risk youth, helping them find shelter, getting them into programs,”  Father Leland says, “He’s been supportive all the way, donating his time, and money.” His lip twists, as though he’s trying to smile but is in danger of crying instead.  “He’s good with those kids. They all love him, and they trust him. If it wasn’t for that fragile trust, we never would have known so many of them were going missing.”

“Missing?  The NYPD has not released a statement—”  Tracy glances up, somewhere off screen, she nods, and turns back to Father Leland.  “It seems our time is up. Father, is there anything else you would like to add?”

Father Leland slumps, disappointed, but not surprised.  “Just this. This Sunday, St. Anthony’s will be holding a midday mass for Steve’s fast recovery.  Doors will be open, and all are welcome. We’re expecting some spillover onto the sidewalk, so take that into consideration, come early, and dress warm.”

 

**Desire**

The memory is distinct.

There’s red smeared on its neck, but it’s not the right colour or texture to be blood.  The mark is in the shape of a perfect pair of lips. The soldier dabs at it with a wet rag, watching its reflection in the small mirror above the kitchen sink.  It wears a shirt gaping open at the throat, cap tipped rakishly to the side. The clothing is perfectly tailored, fitting to a tee, despite being cheap and worn.

A small, blonde man sits on the edge of the bed, watching, and the soldier watches him back in the mirror. His expression is fond, but exasperated, thin arms holding up a lean torso. It's hot in the apartment, but the soldier knows it's not hot enough to consider sleeping on the fire escape.

The soldier’s eyes run up and down that small body, lingering on that shirtless torso, on the bones that protrude from slim hips, framing a trail of darker hair, before moving up to the blonde hair that sticks up in every which way from sleep.

Its tongue grows heavy in its mouth.

_I hope you treated her right._

The soldier quirks its eyebrow.  A dimple forms in its cheek as it smiles in a way it never knew it could.

_Pal, If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to show a dame a good time._

The man rolls his eyes, shaking his head, but he’s smiling too, and that makes the soldier feel an overwhelming need to walk over, and pick him up by the back of his thighs.  To push that blonde hair out of his face, to taste, to take, and to make this man want it all back. But, the soldier doesn’t, and the man climbs back into the bed, leaving a bit of room, enough for another body to fit beside him.  He calls over his shoulder to the soldier.

_Come to bed, you Lothario._

 

**Maxim's Silver Hummer**

The soldier counts the inventory of two by fours needed over by the north end of the site when a vehicle roars through the open front gates, dust rising in a cloud in its wake.  The only reason the soldier does not drop everything and run, is because while Hydra uses these types of military vehicles, they prefer them in black, not reflective metallic silver.

It glances over to the foreman who has suddenly started sweating nervously, evidently recognizing the owner.  Marcel, on the other hand, looks vaguely pissed, a deep frown pulling his lips down. He meets the soldier’s gaze, and shakes his head.

The Hummer’s back door flies open, and a man in a bespoke suit climbs out.  Expensive shoes shined, and sunglasses firmly in place—even though the sun is hiding behind heavy cloud cover—the man smiles widely, teeth so white they’re almost blue.

He must be an investor, or a relation of Vasily’s.  He strides forward into the site, uncaring that those shiny shoes sink into the wet clay.

_Another hole in the knee, boychik?  Only the privileged can afford to treat their clothing like shit._

“My uncle's got you on a tight schedule,”  the man says to the foreman, his smirk big and friendly.

“This another inspection, Max?”  The foreman asks nervously, taking no comfort in the man’s—Max's—reassuring manner.

“Nah, this is unofficial business only.”  Max takes a good look around, eyes landing on the soldier, hovering for a worrying length of time, then moving on.  “Checking on my investments.”

The soldier keeps its ears focused on the ongoing conversation between Max and the foreman as he goes back to work.  He notes down the shipment of lumber, snapping it into the clipboard, and handing it off to the team that needs it.

“Hey.”  Marcel slides up to him.  “How’d you feel about taking an early lunch?”  The soldier quirks a brow, and Marcel continues,  “Yeah, I know you’re a creature of habit, but if I have to spend any time near that guy I’m gonna punch something.”

“That much of an asshole?”  The soldier asks.

“And more.  He came by a few weeks before you started working here, and started saying some shit I don’t like.”

The soldier shrugs.  “Sure.” It means it will have to return to the site after lunch, but it isn’t that inconvenient if it means stopping Marcel from getting himself fired and in trouble with the mob.

“Afternoon, gentlemen.”  Max pops up out of nowhere, sneaky for a man his size.  Marcel stiffens.

The soldier glances at him in worry.  “Aren’t you supposed to be over in demolitions, Bell?”  It asks. “Tommy wanted to discuss the old foundation.”

Marcel grins widely, gratitude glowing in his eyes.  He claps its shoulder. “Thanks for the reminder.” Marcel’s smile slips when he turns to Max.  “Sir.” Tipping his hard hat, he walks away as fast as his long legs can carry him.

“You’re new here.”

The soldier looks into unreadable black eyes; ringed with pale blonde, almost white, lashes.  Max would look like a washed out rag if it weren’t for those eyes. They ground his otherwise milky face.  He’s handsome—in the shape of his jawline, and his thin nose—but there’s something wrong about him. His gaze is so serious, so studious, even though he’s smiling wide enough to show bleached teeth.

“It’s been a few months,”  the soldier says gruffly. Marcel is the least confrontational man it has ever know, and the soldier wonders what Max must have said to anger him to such an extent.

Max looks up and down its body in a way that makes it feel flayed open to the core.  It fiddles with the velcro straps on its gloves, somehow knowing that Max can never know about its arm.  “Welcome to the family.”

The soldier hums.  “Thanks.”

Max leans back against the side of a inoperational excavator, uncaring that it is spotted with dried muck.  He folds his arms into this pockets. “Are you married—sorry, what’s your name, again?”

“McJohnson.”

“Ah.  You married, Jimmy?”  Max says with a grin that sends a shiver down its spine.

The soldier clenches its fists, metal and bone creaking.  “No.”

Max chews on his inner cheek, still staring at the soldier with those damned dark eyes.  “It’s legal now, for your kind.”

“It’s always been legal to marry a woman,”  the soldier says, adding, “Sir.”

“Of course, of course.”  Max nods, head bobbing up and down.  “I’m not bothering you, am I, Jimmy?”

“Course not, sir,”  the soldier gruffs.

Max moves away from the excavator, stepping close to the soldier.

It slips a pen out of its pocket, holding it loosely in its hand.  It knows approximately fifteen ways it can kill this man in a split second using only the pen.  It considers using one such method—the one that would cause the most screaming. Anything to remove that curious disinterest from his face.  There’s something about Max that rubs it the wrong way.

“You and I must be about the same age.”  Max quirks a brow. “Let me guess, thirty-five?”

“Thirty something,”  the soldier says.

“You always worn facial hair, Jimmy?”

“Why?”  The soldier's nose flares, it could jab the pen into the base of his throat.  Stop Max from talking, permanently. “Is it against regulation?”

Max chuckles.  “Just trying to place a face I could have sworn I’ve seen before.”

The soldier freezes, remembering where it is.  There are too many witnesses around. “Doubt it.”  It clears its throat. “Not from around here.”

“I can hear the Brooklyn in your accent.”

“It’s easy to pick up, stuck five hours a day ‘round these guys,”  the soldier says.

Max smiles widely.  “I’ll figure it out, one day, just you wait.”

“Looking forward to it, sir,”  the soldier lies.

Later, as Max climbs back into his Hummer, he winks at the soldier, before the door shuts behind him, and the vehicle speeds out of the lot.  Marcel comes up to him, lunchbox in hand.

“He’s racist shit,”  Marcel says in explanation, and the soldier takes his word for it.

 

**Lucky Strikes**

The soldier sips from the dregs of its coffee, as Trevor scribbles away on pieces of paper on the other side of the diner booth.

A patron climbs out of his booth where he’s having breakfast with his family.  He leaves via the front door, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket.  He lights one, and stands by the line of cars at the front, puffing away, the smoke rising in a plume.  Eventually, the smouldering stub is dropped to the asphalt and ground out by the heel of his shoe.

The train schedule the soldier copied is folded in the breast pocket of the second-hand suit it bought from the local thrift store.  There’s a persistent stain by the knee, which it tried to remove with a detergent pen, to no avail. It cannot help but be bothered by it.  The soldier will be attending mass today, and it should not look any less than perfect.

It distracts itself from its less than ideal appearance by watching Trevor draw.  He’s as good as can be expected of a six year old with a pencil. Meaning there are blobs and wiggly lines on the many sheets of newsprint scattered about the table.  But, it’s Trevor’s impressive focus on the task at hand that brings forward a memory from the recesses of the soldier’s mind.

One minute it’s in the diner, and the next it’s opening the door to a small, one-room apartment, a lunch pail in one hand, a wrapped package in the other.

It pulls off its coat, and drapes it over the back of a chair.  Its hat it tosses by the stove for the melting snowflakes on the top to dry.  A small man is curled up on the only bed, a puff of blonde hair, the only visible part of his body.  The soldier smiles. It walks over to their bed, pulling its braces off its shoulders as it goes. A sketchbook lies open on the covers, a beautiful drawing of the skyline painstakingly etched on its cheap pages.  The soldier carefully closes it, and lays it to the side.

It places a hand on the man’s back, between his shoulder blades, leaning over him gently.  The man stirs, and turns to face the soldier, blinking tired blue eyes.

_Hey, when’d you get back?_

The soldier feels such staggering fondness as it looks at this man.  Its hands twitch at its sides when a long strand of blonde hair falls onto his forehead.

_Just now.  C’mon, get up, I’ll make dinner._

The soldier boils a couple of potatoes with a head of sad-looking cabbage, then divides the meal equally between them.  The man spoons a few potatoes from his plate to the soldier’s, and when it opens its mouth to protest, the man shuts it with a quick, but potent glare.

With their plates scraped clean, the soldier slips the package across the table.  The soldier says nothing, and its face betrays no emotions, but it eagerly awaits the man’s reaction.  The man glances at the package, then up at the soldier, his brows pulled together in the middle, but he opens it regardless, and his mouth falls open.

_These are so expensive._

He holds a bundle of pencils, the wood painted a bright yellow.  The graphite is sharp as a skewer. The soldier recalls sharpening them itself with a pocket knife right after it bought them.  Thin fingers run delicately over the pencils, as if he’s afraid they might disappear at any moment. Studying his every feature, the soldier drinks him in.  There’s joy, elation, a tad bit of disbelief.

His eyes are so goddamned blue.

_Your art is worth it, pal._

The soldier says this, even though it means something else entirely.

A little while later, the soldier sits by the open window, a cigarette dangling from its mouth.  It sticks its head into the cold winter to blow the smoke away, waving off any furls that threaten to come back in, knowing the man’s lungs cannot handle even a whiff of tobacco.

Sitting at the wobbly kitchen table, the man’s sketchbook lies in front of him as he draws.  His tongue peeks from his red red mouth in concentration. He looks up occasionally, eyes moving over the soldier in a caress.

The soldier smiles around its cigarette.  It sits up straight, posing, feeling unfamiliar pride in its good looks, and at the fact that this man thinks it worthy enough to be immortalized in graphite.  It’s yet another thing to confess come Saturday, but pride has always been the least of its sins. The soldier smiles, teasing.

_What are you drawing?_

The man looks up, smirking.

_The idiot look on you face._

“The caterpillar on your face,”  Trevor says, showing it another set of squiggles and shapes.

“What a handsome caterpillar,”  the soldier observes, shaking off the memory.

Trevor scoffs with the incredulity of a man quadruple his six oatmeal-hating years.  “You're a stupid white boy.”

The soldier snorts, and its coffee goes down the wrong pipe.

“You kiss your ma with that mouth?”  It asks after it has finished coughing up its lungs.

“Yup.”  Trevor pops the p, not even a little apologetic.  He gets all his sass from Gloria, Marcel’s much too nice for his own good.  

“Still, that's not a denial,”  the soldier points out, biting into a piece of toast, moving its upper lip so the moustache wiggles.  “It is a very handsome moustache.”

Trevor rolls his eyes, and returns to his drawing, but the corners of his lips twitch like he’s trying—and failing—not to laugh.

 

**Warfare, Pt. ii**

The soldier lays a twenty on the countertop, to Gloria’s protests, when Aiden pokes his grey head around the swinging kitchen door.  “Can I talk to you for a bit before you go, Jimmy?”

The soldier nods, and raises its brows pointedly until she takes the damned twenty.  She’s stubborn as all heck about its tipping habits, but it only has one mouth to feed.  She has four, counting the ravenous one in her belly.

“It won’t be long,”  Aiden reassures, as the soldier walks over.  Aiden holds the door open for him. “You’ll still make your train.”  He winks at Gloria. “Pour him a cuppa joe to go, would’ya, old girl?”

Gloria salutes, as the soldier disappears into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind them, giving them some semblance of privacy.

Aiden returns to the burner where he’s got a pot of grits bubbling away.  He pulls a cloth from his apron, and uses it to pick up the pot, setting it aside on the counter.  “When I got back from Vietnam I was a mess,” Aiden says, jumping right into it, “Here, taste that.”  He holds a spoonful of the grits up for the soldier. Dutifully, he tastes.

“It’s missing something,”  the soldier says, licking its lips.

“Salt?”

“Nah.”

“Spice then.”  Aiden nods to himself, walking over to the cupboard, grabbing a big jug of some red powder.  He eyeballs a bit into the grits, stirring. “I was a lot like you, before,” Aiden continues.  The soldier’s eye flickers down to his leg prosthesis. Aiden notices, and shakes his head with a wry smile.  “Not just that. The other boys in my unit got angry when they came home, real mean. Started treating their families like shit.  I got quiet, and stopped talking to my wife—God rest her soul. We’d only been married a few days before the draft came in the mail, and when I got back, I was a completely different person, but she stuck with me.”  Aiden smiles happily into the pot of grits. Swiping another spoon into the mix, he holds it up for the soldier to taste.

The soldier does, saying,  “It’s good.”

“When in doubt always add a dash of paprika,”  Aiden says, then, “She convinced me to talk to a professional, and in the beginning it was hard, but it was better than trying to open up to her.  Sometimes it's good to unload onto a stranger, there’s no danger of them leaving you if you say something awful. You got anyone to talk to, Jimmy?”

The soldier shakes its head, going over to the sink to rinse out the two spoons, depositing them into the dish rack to dry.  It doesn’t look at Aiden.

“Therapy helped me reintegrate, got me away from the painkillers, and helped convince me that I was safe, no matter that my instincts were telling me otherwise.”

“It’s good to have those kind of instincts,”  the soldier points out.

“Brooklyn ain’t the war theatre, Jimmy.  I know there’s stigma against seeking help, less now than before, but it’s still there.”  Aiden folds hairy arms over his rotund stomach. “It can be hard, but there’s nothing honourable about tearing yourself apart over something you were ordered to do overseas.”

“Shoulda said no,”  the soldier murmurs, staring down at its feet.

“We can’t always say no when we want to.”  Aiden scrubs a hand through his hair. “Listen, think about it, alright?”

“Don’t have insurance,”  the soldier says with a shrug, glancing up at Aiden, but he frowns strangely.

“What do you mean?”  He points to the soldier’s metal arm,  “That should mean you get all the care you need at the veterans’ hospital.”

The soldier chews its bottom lip, mumbling,  “Didn’t work for the US government.” Aiden frowns.  “Private military contractors,” the soldier says in explanation, and that’s all it plans on saying on the subject.

Aiden purses his lips.  “They should be taking care of you, regardless.”

“They don't believe in soft things like recovery,”  It explains.

“They gave you that arm,”  Aiden points out, voice taking on a hint of urgency.

The soldier clenches its fist.  “That wasn't recovery, that was to keep the fight going.”  It checks the clock over the doorway. “The train’s due in ten,”  it says shortly.

Aiden looks horrified, but he says nothing more, just nods his head, eyes wet.  As the soldier pushes open the kitchen door, it sees Aiden cover his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.

The door closes, blocking its view.

 

**A Service**

The soldier takes the Q train to Manhattan.  It sits on the same bench as a flannel-wearing teenager, a panting bulldog in the duffle by her feet.  She’s busy on her phone, and doesn’t catch the soldier staring at the dog, who seems happy to stare back.

How scratched up would it get if it tried to wrangle the mangy cat always hanging around its apartment into a bag?  This bulldog seems all too pleased with its situation.

The soldier does not understand.   The thought of Hydra returning it to a bag at their feet—trapping it under their control again—makes it sick to its stomach.

It tosses the empty coffee cup into a bin as it climbs from the underground, into the hustle and bustle of midtown.  It has an errand to run—the Singer needs an actual belt, one that isn’t in danger of snapping at any moment. Somehow it had known about the series of tailor supply shops on 38th, without having to look them up online.

All that, however, is secondary.  Today its main mission is to attend Captain Steven Rogers’ dedicated mass.

Why it feels such a strong need to do so, is another matter altogether.

Manhattan is a different beast from Brooklyn.  The homeless population is staggering. People throw coins at them, but no one wants to look them in the eye.  To these people the homeless are not really people. They are part of the landscape of the city, like the buildings and the sidewalks.  The soldier could disappear into these streets, merge into the endless crowds, and Hydra would never find it.

The soldier plays a part in Brooklyn, learning from the people around it; how to fit in, how to pretend at personhood.  It is good at it. Marcel and his family do not see it as a weapon without a master. They treat it like it's a person, and sometimes it even believes it.

The soldier arrives hours early for mass.

A coffee shop lies across the street, and the soldier goes inside.  While it waits in line it notices a bulletin board. There’s a posting for a electric bike, as well as someone advertising a shuffleboard group, but most of the space is filled with posters of missing persons.  All of them are twenty-somethings, and most of them are visible minorities.

It orders a danish—even it can handle only so much caffeine in a day—and tips generously.  All the window seats are taken, but it evicts a hapless college student with a vicious glare, settling into their empty seat.  Picking at the danish, it waits, and watches.

St. Anthony of Padua church is a fine piece of architecture.  According to the soldier’s research, the nave dates back to the 1800s, while the rectory is newly built.  It’s where the Leviathan crashed during the Chitauri Invasion, but no trace of the tragedy remains, except for a bronze plaque to commemorate the lives lost.

There is no blood on the steps where the soldier shot Captain America.  It wonders if whomever cleaned it would know how to remove stains from polyester suits.

The soldier searches for any trace of Hydra, but there are no unmarked vans, nor vehicles that repeatedly circle the block.

When it finishes its danish it leaves the coffee shop, and crosses the street.  The heavy main doors to the church lie wide open, and as the soldier walks into the vestibule, it notices a wall of photographs tucked in the corner.

Father Leland appears in many of the photographs, posing with youth and teenagers, his cassock sleeves rolled casually up to his elbows, but he doesn’t appear in nearly as many photographs as Captain America.

Steve Rogers smiles with his whole body.  His manner is open and loose. In a group photograph, he has an arm thrown around Father Leland’s shoulders, his eyes crinkled, and he seems to be laughing over what a thin, green-haired woman is saying.

_Course you got me laughing, you’re the funniest guy I know._

It recognizes the woman from the missing persons poster at the coffee shop.  The soldier frowns. It searches for more faces, eyes flicking through the photographs.  At least twelve people in the pictures are also missing, and the soldier cannot help but think that is mighty suspicious, even for a big city like New York.

It leaves the wall of memories behind, and walks into the nave of the church.  A few people sit in the pews, most of them with their heads bowed in prayer. The soldier chooses a pew where it will easily blend into the crowd when the church fills.  It picks up a hymn book, pretending to read it over, when it is instead scanning the church for exits.

Its eye alights on Father Leland, where he stands by the lectern, talking with a man the soldier last saw through its scope.  It’s the Captain’s close associate: Sam Wilson.

Their heads are bent together and they seem consumed by whatever topic they’re discussing.  The soldier’s eye drifts from them to a tripod beside the lectern. Surrounded by fresh flowers is a tripod displaying a picture of Captain America himself, brilliant smile fixed firmly in place.

It’s a memorial, and the man isn't even dead.  The thrum of resulting anger the soldier feels is unfamiliar to say the least.  It concentrates, and listens in on the conversation.

“...morbid…”

“...a reminder…”

“...not gone yet…”

“...want them to see his face,”  Wilson says, and his voice rises enough for the soldier to hear it clearly,  “I want them to know what they have done.” He seems to realize how loud he is in the silence of the church, because he ducks his head, and whispers fiercely.

Father Leland places his hand on Wilson’s shoulder.  “What makes you so sure the assassin will show up?”

“Gut feeling,”  Wilson says, and looks up, right in the soldier’s direction.  The soldier doesn't immediately break eye contact, it would be suspicious to do so, instead it nods to Wilson, whose eyes narrow anyway.  The soldier lets its gaze casually drift away.

At the north end of the church sits a couple of innocuous wooden booths.  It closes its eyes as the memory comes.

 

**A Confession**

The soldier leans its forehead against wooden wall of the confessional.  It can barely make out the priest’s blurry form through the lattice screen.  Its cheeks are unfamiliarly wet, and the smell of salt is strong in the air.

_James, there is nothing God, nor I, can can do for you if you do not seek forgiveness._

The soldier makes a sharp, terrible noise.  It’s crying, hard enough for its eyes to feel puffy.  Hard enough for hiccups to make it choke on air.

_Surely God would not make me like this if I wasn’t supposed to love him?_

It begs for reassurances it knows it will never receive.  Not from the mouth of this priest, nor from God himself. It is alone in this struggle.

_You are supposed to love him, he is your friend, he is your brother.  God gave you that blessing. It is the devil that twists it, that makes you covet him immorally, and James, we must resist the devil’s machinations._

The soldier fists its hands on its knees.  It wants to punch through this confessional, to escape, but it knows there is no escape from the priest’s truths.

_It’s so hard, Father._

The priest understands the soldier's plight.  This parish lies smack in the middle of a community of sinners.  But the priest’s vocation demands that the soldier not give an inch, for if it gives an inch, it will take a mile, and its soul will be lost.  The priest is sympathetic, yes, but the soldier must not give in or will lose the man it was only ever supposed to love platonically.

_It is tough, my child, but to be on this earth is to suffer._

 

**A Service, Pt. ii**

The soldier opens its eyes.  The church is full of people, and Sam Wilson sits beside it on the same pew.

The priest starts the mass, speaking in the vernacular, instead of Latin, which surprises the soldier.  The mass has changed, but it follows along to what the congregation does, and it does not stand out. It keeps track of Wilson out of the corner of its eye, watching him murmur along to the prayers.

Father Leland steps up to the lectern, his green vestments swirling at his feet.  He opens a large gilt bible, fingers caressing the pages. He reads the liturgy, and the soldier finds itself paying attention.

When he finishes, he smiles at his congregation.  “Thank you all for coming this Sunday,” he says, “It’s a full house today, and I know Steve appreciates all of your thoughts and prayers...”

Father Leland takes a deep breath.  “Our collection today will be for an organization that Steve and I have built over the years.  Steve has contributed his energy and time into helping homeless youth, and addicts—” At those words, whispers pass over the congregation, heads bowing together as people gossip amongst themselves.  Father Leland raises his voice. “Stigma often prevents donations from coming in, but members of our community are going missing, and something must be done to find them. There has to be measures in place to help those that law enforcement will not.  It’s what Steve would want.”

A woman sitting behind the soldier scoffs, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear,  “Imagine that, grouping Captain America in with a bunch of druggies, and hoodlums.”

_Look what the cat dragged in, two little hoodlums covered in mud.  You best not get any of that on my kitchen floor, ya hear me, Jimmy?_

Wilson stiffens, and the soldier immediately turns around in its seat, snarling,  “Why don't you shut the fuck up, lady?” She gasps, staring at the soldier in disbelief, and it shrinks in on itself, surprised by its own actions.  It’s supposed to be hiding in plain view, it has no business drawing attention. It hunches its shoulders, turning back to the front.

“Thanks, man,”  Wilson whispers, startling the soldier.  It nods in acknowledgement but says no more.

The noise from the congregation is deafening, but Father Leland fights on, saying,  “Please, if you have the means, open your hearts, and give generously. Thank you.”

The soldier slips out before it comes time for communion.  Its soul is unclean, and confessing to the multitude of sins it has committed is impossible if it wishes to stay under the radar.  Besides, it has no right to partake in such a blessing.

[Tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/172706547872/art-for-jury-duty-they-caught-him-down-by-the)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *finger guns* if you got The Beatles reference
> 
> Leave a comment, I love to read them!


	4. Chapter 4

**Kolya, Pt. ii**

The soldier kneels in front of the Singer, installing the new belt, when Kolya walks into the dry cleaners.

He leans against the counter, arms spread wide.  His body language is open, but his eyes are cold.  The soldier returns to its work, and finishes the install in short time, giving the balance wheel a spin to test it out.  It runs perfectly.

“Lana sent me an interesting message this morning,”  Kolya says, as the soldier grabs a rag to wipe the grease off its hands,  “She noticed that Spick ‘N’ Span suddenly had an uptick in mentions on the internet.”  He tilts his head to the machine. “I’m guessing that’s one of the reasons why?”

The soldier tosses the rag on the counter.  It picks up the broom to sweep the shop, keeping a close eye on Kolya.  There are three, burly men waiting outside. The soldier catches a glimpse of them through the window.  One smokes a cigarette, another tells a joke in Yiddish, and the soldier understands every word he says.  Neither the Soviets, nor Hydra taught the soldier the Jewish language.

_George is pleased with your choice, boychik, but please keep up your lessons, for me?_

It holds itself loose in anticipation.  There’s a van idling at the curb, and the rattle is deafening.  It has no misconceptions about why Kolya is here. Spick ‘N’ Span Dry Cleaning is not a real business.  The soldier was supposed to keep it out of the public eye, far under the radar. The alterations and ironing jobs do not work towards that endeavor.

“I like you.  You’re an intelligent young man, gutsy.”  Kolya says. It clenches its gloved hand, stopping itself from reaching out and wrapping the fist of Hydra around Kolya’s throat.  The broom creaks in its grip. “But sometimes even intelligent young men can be stupid.” Kolya whistles through his teeth, and the grunts shoulder their way into the store front.

As the soldier watches, one by one, they remove the boxes of sewing supplies, and then roll out the ironing board.  They wear guns in holsters beneath their coats, and it would be so easy for the soldier to take one, to turn it on its former master.  The men would lie dead in only a few seconds. If it didn’t bother with the gun, it would take but a second more.

One man nudges the Singer with his foot, and the soldier’s violent thoughts fall away, replaced with desperation.  The soldier speaks familiar unfamiliar words, pleading for him to be careful. If the man is surprised that it speaks Yiddish, he doesn't show it, but he nods.  He’s marginally gentler when he picks up the machine, taking it out to the truck.

“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”  Koyla says to the soldier through the gutted shop between them.  It says nothing back.

They drive away.  The soldier sits on its rickety chair, staring into blank space.  It feels as though its heart is being squeezed in a vice.

 

**Glass Cages**

The soldier sits in front of its television, watching its morning show.  The diner opens at six o'clock. If it leaves now, it will make it in time for Gloria to let it in.  Depending on how hard the baby’s kicking, she might be in a generous enough mood, and allow the soldier to help her set up.

Then, its phone rings.

Only four people have its number: The foreman, Kolya, Gloria, and Marcel.

The screen displays Marcel's name, as well as a picture he had the soldier take of him; hard hat on, winking at the camera.

The soldier picks the call, and holds the phone to its ear, waiting.

Marcel clears his throat.  “Jimmy, you there, man?”

The soldier grunts in acknowledgement.

“Sorry for waking you up,”  Marcel says nervously, “Listen, I've got a huge favour to ask of you.”

Fifteen minutes later, and the soldier regrets agreeing to Marcel’s request.  It’s only after he shows up at its apartment door with Trevor, that it realizes it absolutely cannot have a child spend an entire day in an apartment infested with mold.

Marcel wears his uniform for his second job, while Trevor’s dressed for a day out on the town.  The pink clip-on bowtie at his throat matches the pink ties used to somewhat tame his massive head of hair.

“Thanks so much for agreeing to this,”  Marcel pushes his way into the apartment, sounding utterly frazzled, and the soldier steps aside to let him in,  “I know it’s last minute, but Gloria needed to see her OB at the last minute.”

“Is she alright?”  The soldier asks, alarmed.

“Practice contractions, it’s probably nothing, but they were pretty nasty with this monkey,”  Marcel ruffles Trevor’s hair, who pats his hair back into place, offended, “Better to be safe than sorry.”

Marcel’s setting a day bag on the breakfast table, muttering something about remembering to pack a picture book, when he finally takes in the soldier's apartment.  He stops right in his tracks, looking around in surprise.

The soldier lives in a spartan, one-room studio with an attached bathroom.  Amenities, like laundry are located at the basement level, everything else it needs is available within its own four walls.

“Jimmy, uh,”  Marcel starts, pained,  “Where’s your bed?”

The soldier says,  “Um.”

Marcel’s eyes widen, and he backsteps on his words, raising his hands.  “Is this a veteran thing, like is a bed too soft or something? It’s a veteran thing, isn’t it?  Oh, Christ, I’m an dick.”

“Um,”  the soldier repeats, eyes flicking down to Trevor where he wears a look of unprecedented glee.

“Dick?”  Trevor repeats.

“Fuck,”  Marcel swears, then slaps his hands over his mouth, eyes as wide as saucers,  “I need to leave now, before he learns any more garbage from his terrible father.  Jesus H. Christ, Gloria’s gonna kill me.”

“She’s not gonna kill you, she’s not going to think it was you,”  the soldier points out, after all it’s going to be looking after Trevor today.

Again, why did it agree to this?

Marcel shakes his head, bending low to press a quick kiss to Trevor’s forehead, who pouts now that his father is leaving.  “Jimmy, she ain’t gonna think it’s you. I’m the one with the potty mouth.”

The soldier does not mention that last Sunday it cussed out a woman in a church, of all places.

Marcel calls out a final “love ya, be good” to Trevor, then the door is closing, and the soldier is left with a six year old child, a bag of supplies for the maintenance of said child, and an apartment full of mold.

“You ever been to Central Park Zoo?”  The soldier asks. Trevor shakes his head, but he’s slightly perkier, eyes glittering in anticipation.  “If you promise not to repeat your da’s words in front of your ma, would you like to go?”

Trevor nods his head so rapidly, the soldier is surprised he doesn’t knock himself off balance.

It’s only when they’re on the Q, that the soldier thinks it should probably ask Trevor’s parents if it has permission to take their kid out of Brooklyn.  The last thing it needs is kidnapping charges leveled against one Jimothy McJohnson.

Trevor’s got his face pressed up against the filthy window, making vaguely train-like whooshing noises, and the soldier is glad that Marcel’s bag of supplies comes with two packs of wet wipes.  It pulls out its phone, and sends a quick message to Gloria.

A few minutes later—during which the soldier considers disappointing Trevor and turning them right around to spend the day somewhere tamer, like Aiden’s diner—the soldier's phone vibrates.

sure, that sounds great!!  
damn, I can’t believe I’m jealous of my own kid…  
just make sure you hold his hand, and don’t let him out of your sight

A second vibration indicates the arrival of another message.

oh!  and get loads of pictures!

The soldier purses its lips at the message, and with a sweep of its thumb, brings up the camera application.  It takes a picture of Trevor licking the train window, and promptly deletes it with a grimace. That’s not something any parent needs to see.

“Trevor,”  it calls out with a frown, and the kid looks over sheepishly.  He sits beside the soldier, and it briefly considers cleaning Trevor’s tongue with the wet wipes, but eventually decided it would be too traumatizing an experience for the both of them.

_Don’t make me wash out your mouth with soap, boychik._

It hands Trevor a juice box to keep him busy, then wipes down his cheeks, and decides it might as well clean his hands as well.  They’re suspiciously sticky, and the soldier makes a face, scrubbing the wet wipe between those tiny fingers.

_You were such a filthy tot, Jimmy, always getting your hands in one mess after the other.  I used to have the patience of an angel, but then you’d turn up with a bloody nose and mouthful of dirt, hanging off that blonde ragamuffin.  I just thank God everyday that you grew outta your grubby ways._

“You think we’ll see any pigeons?”  Trevor asks excitedly around his straw.

“What?”  The soldier says, surprised.  “Brooklyn ain’t got pigeons enough for your tastes?”

“Bear chases them all away,”  Trevor pouts.

“Bear?”

“The neighbourhood cat.  He hangs out around your building all the time, but he don’t belong to anyone, he’s his own cat.”

Bear, the mangy stray.  It’s an appropriate name.  The soldier considers telling Trevor that Bear likely catches and eats all the pigeons that come onto his territory.  It eventually decides that a six year old has no need of a lesson in mortality this early on in the day.

Maybe later.

The hour long train ride is kept entertaining by Trevor narrating his life with much drama, and much enthusiasm.  But, even Trevor can only talk for so long, and he eventually tires himself out. Nearing the end of the train ride he falls asleep, face pressed to the soldier’s bicep as he snoozes.  He’s drooling a little bit, the soldier can feel it through the fabric of its hoodie.

“Isn’t that just the sweetest sight?”  An older woman across the aisle says.

The soldier nudges Trevor until he falls back against the bench.  He’s got a bubble of snot growing out of his nose, and the soldier is tempted to ignore it, hoping it goes away on its own, but the woman is watching.  It extracts another wet wipe from its slowly diminishing supply and uses it to clean his face.

There’s nothing that can be done for its hoodie.

The woman smiles even wider, and the soldier manages to return the gesture successfully.

The walk through Central Park is only accomplished at a reasonable pace when the soldier picks up Trevor and slings him around his back.  He giggles and makes animal noises, kicking the soldier in the sides, which it does not appreciate. The arms around its neck aren’t tight enough to be restricting, and the dismissable weight of him on its back is reassuring.

The soldier pays their fare, and then they’re inside.  Trevor starts waving his arms around, so it lets him down, afraid he would fall off otherwise.

“What do you want to see first?”  It asks, and immediately Trevor suggests every single animal in the zoo.  The soldier makes the executive decision to see the seals first.

Trevor examines the enclosure, while it sits on the concrete steps, keeping an eye on him.  It snaps a few pictures for his mother, then leans back to relax. The concrete is cold beneath its flesh palm, and despite it being late April, its fingers chill quickly.  It tips its head back. The sky is a brilliant blue, streaked with thin wisps of white clouds.

Many places in Brooklyn seem vaguely familiar, as though it remembers the skeleton of the neighbourhood it is now, but the zoo is unfamiliar.  Its memories from _before_ lie out of reach, and even when they surface, they’re often out of context.  The Soviets used to claim that they made it, and while it may be true in some aspects, they did not start with a blank slate.

The soldier was not always a weapon.

A sweep of darkness at its peripherals brings the soldier out of its thoughts.  It locates Trevor, and determines that he is safe, then it looks to the tank, and sees another blur.  It’s a seal. It swims in a loop around the tank, twirling its body so it splashes water off the sides.  The soldier watches it move, as it settles into a routine. Once around the tank, then a flip, a splash of water, and around the tank once more.

“Jimmy, Jimmy, can we go to the tropical room next?”  Trevor tugs on its arm.

The soldier throws one final glance at the seal over its shoulder.  It’s stuck in its routine, like a oiled machine. If they returned later, would the seal still be swimming and splashing, swimming, and splashing, until it’s too tired to swim and splash anymore?

The rest of the zoo is not much better, though Trevor seems to enjoy it.  All the soldier sees—when the animals pace in their cages, when the seabirds butt their heads against the glass—is a bit placed between its teeth, as it willingly sits in an electric chair.

It keeps itself confined to the glass cage Hydra built around it.  Hydra cannot find it, they might not even be looking for it, and yet it still belongs to them in the truest sense.

It’s learned behaviour that the soldier is slowly unlearning.

 

**The Homing**

On one of the many park benches at the southeastern corner of Central Park, Sam Wilson sits.  His head is thrown back, eyes closed, soaking up the sun like he’s a tree. To further emphasize his stillness, he’s covered from head to toe in cooing pigeons.

Trevor shrieks in delight, pointing excitedly.  The other pedestrians avoid Wilson like the plague, perhaps afraid that whatever attracts the pigeons to him might be contagious.  With no birdseed in sight, a pair of track pants, and a sweatshirt that boasts no hidden pockets, the pigeons’ interest in Wilson remains an enigma.

“Hello!”  Trevor calls over the soldier’s shoulder, tiny fist holding tight to its hoodie.

Wilson frowns, and opens big brown eyes, registering the soldier and Trevor.  He squints, and seems to recognize the soldier because his sleepy gaze clears, even as his head tilts quizzically.  He sits up, and most of the pigeons take off into the sky, leaving two brave birds who continue pecking at Wilson’s sweatshirt.

“Hey,”  Wilson says, paying no attention to the birds.

“You're Falcon,”  Trevor gasps dramatically, and his chin digs into its shoulder.  It grimaces, and swings Trevor off its back, setting him on his feet.

“Yup,”  Wilson says with a brilliant smile,  “Nice bowtie, by the way.”

“My mom has a crush on you,”  Trevor says, apropos of nothing, and Wilson blinks at the soldier.

“Uh,”  he says astutely.

“My dad too,”  Trevor continues, and Wilson's eyes bug out of his skull.

He clears his throat, tone apologetic as he says,  “I’m sure you and your wife are lovely and all, but I… well…”

The soldier snorts.  Taking pity on him, it points to its chest, and says,  “Not his da. Babysitting duty.”

Trevor frowns at it, betrayed.  “I'm not a baby,” he says petulantly.

“Sorry.  Goat-sitting duty,”  the soldier replies, straight-faced.  Trevor screeches, and Wilson chokes.

Several introductions later, and Wilson chokes out a laugh over its fake name.  The soldier is consistently puzzled over why ‘Jimothy’ is so funny. It sounds exactly like a typical American name.

Shaking off his pigeon leeches, Wilson gets to his feet.  He stretches out his back, as though he’s preparing to return to his run.  The soldier’s ready to whisk Trevor back to Brooklyn, but then Wilson says,  “You guys hungry?”

“Hella,”  Trevor says.

Somehow they end up at a Japanese restaurant a few blocks away.  Trevor pours over the kids’ menu, while Wilson hems and haws over what to order.  He eventually decides on a curry don, despite there being an Indian restaurant they could have chosen instead, right across the street.

While waiting for their meal, Trevor plays with a set of chopsticks.

The soldier recalls killing a diplomat with chopsticks, but they had been metal, and even though the memory is fuzzy, it’s pretty sure the food he’d been eating before his untimely death was Korean.  It takes the chopsticks away from Trevor, and gives him a spoon.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look an awful lot like Sergeant James Barnes?”  Wilson asks conversationally, even though his voice takes on a weird tone. The soldier turns away from Trevor to find Wilson staring at him strangely.

The soldier shrugs, feeling strange in its skin.  The name tugs at a memory, but it’s one that doesn’t want to surface.

“Damn.”  Wilson shakes his head in disbelief.  “The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Don’t know who that is,”  the soldier says stiffly.

“Steve’s best friend, back in the war.  Sorry. Steve Rogers,” he clarifies, just in case the soldier didn’t know exactly which Steve he’s talking about.  “He keeps a picture of Barnes in his wallet, right next to one of Director Carter.” He glances at Trevor. “It didn’t survive the incident at St. Anthony’s, too much, um, y’know.”  He gestures vaguely.

“Blood?”  The soldier suggests.

“They showed it on the news,”  Trevor pipes up, making a face,  “There was red stuff everywhere behind the police tape.  It was really gross. Mom tried to cover my eyes, but I saw it through her fingers.”

Wilson works his jaw.  He looks down, hiding his face.  “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

The soldier chews at its inner cheek, and the waitress chooses that moment to sweep up to the table, depositing the food with a smile, and a cheerful, “enjoy!”

It keeps its gloves on as digs into its mid-priced meal with a fork, foregoing the chopsticks, but it stops halfway through to ask the question that’s been bugging it for weeks,  “He’s safe though, isn’t he?”

Wilson smiles sharply into his meal, and he looks anything but happy.  “If you call lying in a coma, locked up in the medical ward of the Avengers Tower safe.”  Wilson stabs at a carrot with a chopstick. “They won’t even let me see him unsupervised. He’s pretty damn safe.”

Trevor’s too busy shoveling food into his mouth to catch Wilson’s tone, but the soldier does.  It’s acerbic, and bitter. He’s too tired and defeated to put on a brave face. Rogers’ condition hangs over his shoulders, weighty, like a storm.

And the soldier was the one who did the deed.  Not that Wilson knows that, but the soldier remembers it clearly.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so focused on Steve Rogers. It has never had such prolonged contact with the friends and family of its previous missions.  Everywhere it goes, and in everything it does, some reminder of what it has done is forced down its throat.

There is no way it will ever leave Hydra behind if it keeps this up.  It needs to let go of Steve Rogers, it needs to close that book in order to open a new one.  Rogers is the glass holding the soldier back from freedom, and the soldier needs to smash him to bits.

It coughs.

Dropping its fork, it bends over the side of the table, hacking violently.  Its back shakes, and it hears Trevor asking what’s wrong, but it can’t collect itself long enough to offer reassurances.  Someone touches its shoulder. It looks up into Wilson’s worried eyes.

Bile rises in its throat.  Only a few seconds ago it considered finding his friend, and ending his life, for a second time.  As though once wasn’t enough.

It coughs again, and this time the fit is much more vicious.

When it dies down, it wipes its mouth with the napkin Wilson offers, then takes a long drink of water from the glass he hands over.

The restaurant is completely silent, and the waitress hovers, shuffling from one foot to the other, her phone is clenched tight in her hand, screen glowing.  The soldier quickly nods at her, signalling that it is fine. The last thing it needs is for her to call an ambulance on its behalf.

“Man, that sounded awful,”  Wilson says. The soldier turns in its seat to find Trevor with his bottom lip bitten red, tears in his eyes.  Without even thinking about it, the soldier pulls him into a hug. Trevor’s arms come up to wrap tight around its neck.

“Don’t die, ‘kay?”  Trevor sniffs.

“Alright,”  the soldier promises.

“You good?”  Wilson asks.

“Yeah,”  the soldier croaks, untangling itself from Trevor’s arms.  It isn’t hungry anymore, too afraid that if it tries to eat, it will just bring up the food.  Too bad, it smells so delicious.

Trevor tugs at its sleeve, voice quiet when he asks,  “Can I go home now?”

Wilson pays for the meal, much to the soldier’s protests, but he insists, saying he was the one who asked them in the first place.  Then he gives the soldier his number, adding one more contact to an already short list.

The train is barely full, rush hour still a while away.  The car rattles beneath them as Trevor digs around in the day bag.  He pulls out a picture book, and hands it to the soldier, putting his big, pleading eyes to work.  “Read it to me?”

There’s a pigeon on the cover, wings spread so wide it takes up most of the space.  It explains Trevor’s newfound love of the winged menaces. Beneath the pigeon a group of cheering men in dark green uniforms gather, American flags waving proudly.

“Cher Ami was a messenger pigeon, and he saved the Lost Battalion,”  Trevor says excitedly, “He’s a hero.”

It opens the book, and its breath catches in its throat.

_We’re taking heavy artillery fire!  By God, the krauts... they’ve got some weapons I’ve never seen before!  Sarge—_

It reads the words on the page, but barely understand what it’s saying.  The story is from the Great War, the war its—

_I nearly died out there, son, if it wasn’t for my brothers-in-arms, I woulda been buried in some shallow grave in the Rhineland.  Family’s important, but we can’t be watching your back from across the Atlantic._

A memory comes.  The soldier crawls into the bough covered foxhole.  A man with a thick moustache and a non-regulation bowler hat is already curled up inside.

_You got my back, Sarge?_

_Y’know it._

Trevor taps its metal arm.  “Can I have my book back?”

The book lies open on the soldier's lap, on the last page.  There’s a picture of a sleeping pigeon, surrounded by the troops he helped save.  They look so happy, glowing cheeks, and bright fucking smiles. It’s fake, fake, fake.

_Mickey’s legs are somewhere in Italy.  The rest of Mickey’s still in Austria. What’s his ma gonna think when I write that her sweet, little boy got blasted to bits, and didn’t have to decency to land mostly in the homeland?_

The soldier gives the book over.  “Thanks,” Trevor says, confused.

It takes Trevor home, and Gloria’s there to answer the door.

“You guys have fun?”  She asks, oofing, as Trevor hugs her around her considerable middle.  “Be gentle,” she chides.

Trevor yammers on excitedly about the zoo, and the plenitude of pigeons Manhattan has to offer.

“How about you?”  She asks the soldier.  She looks so lovely, glowing with happiness.  The soldier has done nothing to deserve her friendship, her trust.  Yet, she and Marcel give it all of that, and more.

“You’ve no reason to be jealous of Trevor,”  it says, forcing a smile on its face, then whispers so Trevor cannot hear,  “The zoo isn’t that great.”

She chuckles.  “You got pictures, I hope?”  The soldier nods. “Make sure to email them to me.”

“Yes, ma’am,”  it salutes, and its form is perfect.

 

**Desire, Pt. ii**

The soldier stares into the darkness, unable to sleep.

Its back aches in the position it’s in, the weight of the titanium arm pulling on its neck muscles.  The pain was ignorable in favour of a routine it felt the need to keep up. Now, it wants nothing more than to escape from this closet, and for once in its damned existence, to just lie down somewhere.

Opening the closet door, the apartment is bathed in the moonlight seeping in through the sheer curtains.  Through a gap, it peers out onto the empty street. In the next building over, someone is still up, the flashing blue light from a television screen reflecting off their window.  The soldier closes the curtains all the way.

It gathers its clothes, and piles them on the floor, arranging them into a rectangle large enough to fit its body.  It won’t be softer than the chair, but it should provide adequate support to its shoulder.

Curling on its makeshift bed, the soldier shuts its eyes, trying to fall asleep.  But, once again, sleep eludes it. It shifts onto its other side, but that just makes the joining of metal and arm hurt even more.  It sighs, and moves to its back, staring up at the ceiling. A water stain in the shape of a screaming face stares back.

It wraps its arms around itself, gripping its shoulder, where flesh meets metal.  Rubbing the skin through its thin tee, it attempts to return circulation to the scar tissue.

Groaning as it massages away the kinks, the soldier sucks its bottom lip into its mouth.  Biting down so it doesn’t awake its neighbours, it trails its fingers up its neck, feeling the pulse beneath the thin skin, blood pumping away so close to the surface.  It has killed so many people by wrapping hands around their necks, throttling the life from them, but its fingers do not bring death anymore. It does not kill anymore, and it will never kill again.

The tips of its callused fingers caress its jawline, and its head head falls back as a shiver works its way from its spine all the way to the tips of its toes.  The organ between its legs stirs. Surprise has the soldier dropping its hand from its neck.

It has never done that before—

_Yes!  Yes! Fuck me harder, James!_

—recently, while it was under Soviet control.

Curious, the soldier moves its hand down its body, stopping at the waistband of its sweatpants.  It taps a finger, considering its options. It could ignore it altogether. Or it could reach inside and take itself in hand, it could touch itself through the fabric.  At this point, its penis would agree to anything but the first option. It does not stop filling, despite the soldier's hesitance.

Slipping its hand beneath the waistband, the soldier goes all the way.  Scratchy hairs against its palms, and then—it groans, turning its head into the pile of clothes beneath its head.  It bites its lip until it tastes blood. Its palm is too dry to be comfortable, but at this point it couldn’t give a single flying fuck.  It strokes from root to tip, gathering wetness with its thumb that it brings back to ease the way.

It swallows, eyes closing, hips thrusting without its control.  It curls up on itself, fetal, a perfect parenthesis as it jacks itself off.  Licking its lips, its mouth falls open as it pants, as it starts talking aloud.

“Fuck.”

The soldier rubs its thumb beneath the head, and its eyes roll back in its head, mind going blank from pleasure.

“Jesus Christ....”  it mutters, “Touch m— Fuck, want you so much….  Stevie...”

The soldier’s eyes fly open as it finds release.

 

**A Confession, Pt. ii**

_At the pictures the other day—_

This smaller, younger version of Steve Rogers bites his lip.  He’s the man the soldier has been remembering for months, but it never realized.  It never made the connection between Captain America and this scrappy slip of boy.  Until now.

He lies opposite the soldier on their bed.  His lashes are dark smudges on his cheekbones.  His cheeks pink in embarrassment, or maybe from the cold.  The soldier hopes it is from the cold. It could handle the cold.  Blankets can fix the cold, embarrassment could only be rectified if the soldier moved out of the apartment they shared.

_I don’t wanna talk about it, Stevie._

The soldier’s hand is curled between them, but when Rogers goes to take it, it dodges him, moving back until one leg is hanging off the side of the bed.  It wants to run, but it doesn’t want to leave.

_But did you really mean what you said?_

The soldier rolls on its back, rubbing its hand over its face.

_I got you that date, she had no right to talk to you like that.  I just said what everyone should be thinking ‘bout you. You’re a good man, you don’t deserve any of the shit that dame said._

Rogers’ gaze digs into the side of its face.

_You’re the most important person in my life, now that Ma’s gone.  I don’t care what anyone has to say about me, ‘specially since I got you._

The soldier chuckles humorlessly.

_Just you wait, you’ll find a nice dame that’ll only see the good things in you, Steve.  Me ‘n my opinions won’t matter then._

Glancing over to him, the soldier feels disconcerted, thrown off by the gentle, chiding look Rogers is giving it.  As though he’s humouring a stubborn child.

_You and your opinions happen to mean a lot to me, bud.  Give it a few years. When you’ve made a home with your future wife and two point five kids, I’m gonna be the bachelor living in your spare bedroom.  I’ll be there to pour you a drink at the end of the day, light your cigarettes, and watch you smoke them out on the balcony, like I always do. Cause I’ll always be your best guy._

The soldier’s voice comes out strangled when it says,

_You’ve got a bleeding heart, Steve Rogers, never change._

 

**A Homecoming**

The security protecting Avengers Tower is formidable, but the soldier is better.

It calls in sick to work, and checks into a hotel.  It watches the tower for a few days, always changing observation spots.  Never the same coffee shop, never the same stores, never the same benches.  The security is advanced, but even A.I. can be fooled.

It licks whipped cream from its top lip, and watches a brunette man of similar weight and height drive his moped into the tower’s underground parking lot.

He spends all of his day inside, only ever leaving on his moped.  But one day, when the falafel stand a block away advertises a two for one special, he emerges from the building at lunch.  The pockets of his janitorial outfit are comically large, and it's no trouble for the soldier to slide up behind him in line and steal his I.D.  A quick glance at the card, and the soldier knows he has the access it needs.

It lets Arnold Haines finish his falafel, a small concession for what it plans on doing to him.

The soldier nabs Haines as he’s returning to the tower.  It drags him into an alleyway in the midst of a crowded Manhattan street.  The soldier was trained in stealth, the same as it was trained in great shows of power.

While in a sleeper hold, it takes only a few minutes of struggling for Haines to go limp.  The soldier methodically divests him of his uniform, and redresses him in the extra clothes it brought along.  It is still too cold to leave him in nothing but boxers and a tank. Haines will wake in a few minutes. Until then, the soldier ties him, and gags him, and tucks him behind a dumpster.  It will call in a tip later.

Haines is a moderately attractive man, and he resembles the soldier in all the ways that matter.  That is, at a glance. His hair is longer than the soldier’s, but that is easily rectified with the baseball cap.  The one thing that differentiates them in a noticeable way is that Haines is clean shaven, and the soldier still has its moustache.

It pulls out its combat knife.

It gets in through the employees only entrance, baseball cap pulled low over its face.  Its upper lip still itches where it shaved itself dry, but it will heal in a few minutes.  It avoids the building staff, anyone that might know Haines, and finds a service elevator using a visitor's map it memorized off the Stark website.  The floor it needs access to was not on the map, but luckily enough, even the most classified spaces need cleaning staff.

It flashes its badge over the reader, and presses the button for the medical ward—where Steve Rogers is.

That’s its reason for this entire trip.  Why it’s risking exposing itself, risking burning Jimothy McJohnson, risking never seeing its tiny, moldy Brooklyn apartment again.  It needs to see Rogers with its own two eyes. It needs to… do something.

The elevator opens, and the soldier walks out.  There’s a doctor at the end of the hall talking with a nurse in maroon scrubs, and it makes a sharp turn into another hallway lined with doors.

Using its metal arm to break the lock, it forces open the door of a supply closet, closing it with a click.

It’s packed full of metal shelves covered in multi coloured bins, and in one corner, a rack of maroon scrubs.  The soldier grabs one in its size, changing quickly, pulling on a long white overcoat to hide its arm. It has to look up which room Rogers is in, and to access the computer system it needs to look like it belongs.

The first terminal the soldier encounters is occupied by a nurse, so it wanders around until it finds another one.  Hacking into patient files is beyond its capabilities, but it manages to bring up a staff dossier, and from that deduces that the resident neurologist spends most of his time in room 6B.

Steve Rogers’ room isn’t even locked.  The soldier thinks it gross incompetence on the staff’s behalf, considering Rogers is only in a coma because of an assassination attempt.  If the soldier was still under Hydra control, it would have been childsplay to locate him and finish the job.

Closing the door behind itself, it leans up against it.  In the centre of the windowless room is Steven Grant Rogers, aka. Captain America, aka. Stevie, to whomever the soldier used to be.

There’s steady background noise, a monitor beeping at a rate faster than any normal human heart, the rush of the air-conditioning, the steady drip of fluids in a bag, and over it all, the sound of Rogers’ breathing.  The soldier approaches.

Steve Rogers is a shadow of his former self.  As the soldier pulls a chair up to his bedside, taking off the overcoat, it notices sunken cheeks, and pale skin that hasn’t seen the sun in months.

The soldier clears its throat, sitting down.  Its eyes run over the man’s face, down to his chest that lifts up and down with every breath he takes.  He could be sleeping. If the soldier didn’t know better, it’d think that calling out his name would wake him from slumber.

But, the soldier does know better, and even if it's not obvious, Rogers is in a coma.  He’s got an IV line in, and a pressure cuff that leads to a machine reading out his vitals.

The soldier bends its head over the bed, and for the first time in seventy years, it prays.

[Tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/172706547872/art-for-jury-duty-they-caught-him-down-by-the)

 

**You**

The one thing that registers the moment it wakes is that it is terribly parched.  The second thing is that Captain America sits at its bedside, head bent over the sketchbook in his lap.  He looks up, and the soldier is stunned. He wears a set of dirty army fatigues, and his eyes are so blue, and so concerned.  And it’s all for the soldier.

Steve Rogers.  The soldier knew him.  Knows him, and even that is an understatement.  He’s a blonde man with an achingly familiar nose, eyebrows, and eyes.  Things that haven’t changed at all despite the experiment that changed almost everything else about him.

 _Bucky_.

Rogers exhales sharply, dropping his pencil into the dirt.  He tosses his sketchbook to the side, as though it means nothing compared to his concern for the soldier.

_Bucky._

He repeats that name, voice cracking on the last syllable of the word the soldier knows deep down in its gut.

That’s its name.  It has a name. Not Jimothy, not Jimmy, not Jim, not James, not Buchanan.  None of those have felt right, none of them belong to the soldier in the truest sense.  All those names have been thrust upon it. Bucky, though...

It chose Bucky.  It knows it in its gut.  It decided on it when it was only a child, and there were three other James in its class.  It wanted to stand out from the rest of them. It wanted to be special.

It has a name.

 _He_ has a name.

_You scared the shit outta me, Buck._

Blue eyes look down at him, at the soldier, at _Bucky_ , dark brows furrowed in disapproval.

Bucky clears his throat, and when he tries to speak, he croaks instead.

_Wha...?_

Rogers, no, Steve runs a hand gently through Bucky’s hair, and his heart tries to escape from his chest.  God, Stevie. How could he forget Steve?

_You got hit.  A sniper, the irony, huh?  Jim saw you go down. The shot wasn’t that bad, it grazed you, but the tumble you took out of that tree was something else.  We were worried about infection for a bit, and Peggy had to raid medical. She held one of the docs at gunpoint before he was willing to let go of a few vials of antibiotics.  There’s a supply shortage._

Bucky tries to clear his throat of the frog stuck in it.   Steve helpfully hands him an enamelled mug of water. He drinks, and the dryness goes away.

_You shouldn’t have wasted it on me.  I’m sure there’s somewhere out there who needs it more than I do._

He doesn’t get infections, Azzano fixed that.

Steve snorts, looking away.  He picks up the pencil that fell, and Bucky recognizes the yellow-painted wood, the gouges taken out of it with a pocket knife.  It’s Bucky’s handiwork. He’s been sharpening Steve’s pencils for years, at first because he was better at it, and now because Steve is more likely to snap it.

Steve shakes his head.

_That’s not how that works, pal._

Steve purses his lips, waiting for Bucky to argue, but he knows better than to fight with Steve when his mind is set on something.  Bucky could argue tactics with Captain America for days, but not Steve, never Steve.

_You make it out okay, Stevie?_

Steve smiles sadly.

_Yeah, I’m good, all thanks to you for covering my ass.  Again._

Bucky relaxes against the pillows stacked at his back.  There’s at least four. Steve must have raided supply to find so many.  Unless they were stolen from some poor officer. Knowing Steve, that’s more likely.  The serum made him stronger. It did not give him respect for the chain of command.

Bucky shrugs sheepishly, a flush rising over his cheeks.

_No need to thank me for doing my job, Steve.  Been like that since we were kids._

Steve smiles at him.  His biggest, most endearing smile.  The smile that convinced a six year old Bucky to stick with a shrimp who kept diving into spats like he has a death wish.

_I love you, Bucky, you big idiot.  Don’t ever do that again._

Tears form in the corners of Bucky’s eyes.  It isn’t the first time Steve has said he loved him, and it won’t be the last, but Bucky knows that Steve doesn’t mean it the way he wants him to mean it.

_I love you too._

 

**Miserere mei, Deus**

“Steve…”  Bucky sobs, combing limp blonde hair away from his pale forehead.  “Steve… God, Stevie, what have I done to you?”

“Who the fuck are you?  What the fuck are you doing here?”

Bucky whips around.  A red-haired woman stands by the open door, a gun aimed right at the soldier’s head.  Her eyes widen when they meet his, and her face drains of all blood.

“ _Teacher_ ,”  she whispers in Russian, and promptly pulls the trigger.

Bucky catches the bullet, but the woman does not relent, she fires the gun until the clip is empty.  His heart is in his throat, not for himself, but for Steve. Even if she thinks Bucky is a threat, how could she put Steve in danger?  But none of the bullets come close to hitting Steve, and Bucky realizes just how skilled this woman is.

Throwing the gun to the side, she darts forward.  Kicking off a crash cart, a twist of her hips, and her leg is swinging in a graceful arc.  Bucky ducks just in time, but she keeps her momentum in a spin, and her thighs wrap around his neck.  She throws her weight to the side, and they’re both falling.

Bucky lands with a grunt, pinning the woman’s leg beneath her.  Unphased, she clenches her fists together, and darts forward, punching him beneath the ribs with the force of a semi truck.

Time slows into one long moment.  He gags, unable to breathe, tears blink in his eyes, and the woman looks at him coldly.  He gasps for air, and she jabs an elbow into his throat, one, two, three times. He hears something crack.  Bucky reaches out blindly, and when his free hand meets metal, he yanks forward. An IV stand comes crashing down, and he clocks the woman over the head, rolling away from her in the same move.  Machines scream in a claxon of terrible alarms.

She shakes the hit off.  Blood matching the colour of her hair seeps from a cut above her eyebrow.  A graceful sweep of her legs and she’s on her feet, even while Bucky still struggles.  His legs shake beneath him, and she leaps forward, knee meeting his forehead, bone against bone.  His head snaps back. The world spins, and he falls in a sprawl, dazed.

Raising his hand to protect his face, he begs hoarsely,  “Stop, please.” His voice is barely audible.

Its emotions are compromised, and it is losing this fight.

No.  He is Bucky, and if it is to end here, he will die as Bucky.

The woman hesitates, a confused frown pulling at her lips.  But it’s only for a moment, and soon she’s pulling a taser from her jacket.  A flick, and she cranks the voltage to the maximum. Electricity crackles in the air, and the smell of burning oxygen is overwhelming.

If she presses it to his titanium arm, an invisible coating of polymer will stop it from electrocuting him.  It will short out, as the Soviet engineers intended, but he’ll have a chance at escape.

Her eyes flicker over the arm, but then her aim shifts to his neck, and Bucky is unmoored, cut, and set adrift.  Her expression is blank, as his is fearful. She knows about the polymer, because she was told about it. She knows him.  She knows his secrets, she knows everything about him.

“Widow—”

She presses the taser to his neck.  His body seizes as the electricity burns through his nerves, and everything stops—

 

**Little Spider**

—and starts.

“I thought you were all dead,”  Bucky murmurs, looking at the woman through barely open eyes.  He’s lying imobile on a stretcher, wrists and ankles cuffed to the hand rail as she wheels him through a white, endless corridor.

“I am dead,”  she says, and presses the taser to his neck again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t recommend letting a strange man—who rolls into town with the fakest name to ever fake, and a terrible moustache—babysit your kid. Cause he might just be a former soviet assassin, and even though childcare can be bank-breaking expensive, it isn’t that expensive.
> 
> The picture book Trevor reads is “Fly, Cher Ami, Fly!: The Pigeon Who Saved the Lost Battalion.” It’s a gorgeous picture book, and suitable for children, despite the bloody source material.
> 
> The scene in “Glass Cages” is inspired by that one time I went to the Central Park Zoo, and left feeling incredibly fucking depressed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I mess around with timelines in this. Just in case it isn't clear, the Winter Soldier isn’t the one who tried to kill Natasha’s nuclear scientist in 2009, instead Hydra sends someone else, who fails.

**Who Are You?**

“Are you going to kill me?”  Bucky asks, testing the give of the solid cuffs around his limbs.  There’s a steady hum emanating from the clasps, and they don’t give an inch.  If he really wanted to, he could rip out the handrail. There’s nothing stopping him, but something tells him that this woman will not harm him.

“No,”  she says, calling the elevator.

“Ma’am!”  A distant voice exclaims.  “What are you doing here? You are not permitted—who is that?  Who are you taking?” She ignores the voice, jabbing at the button a few more times, muttering under her breath.  Bucky tries to lift his head, but he’s not in a position to see what’s going on. All he can hear is feet thundering down a very long corridor.

The elevator arrives, and she wastes no time in rolling Bucky inside.

“Agent, that better not be—”  The voice is cut off as the doors shut with a pneumatic hiss.    Silence reigns, until the soldier breaks it.

“Why?”  He muses, not really asking her.  If he was in her position, he would already be dead.  He’s dangerous, and she knows it from first hand experience.

“Because,”  she starts, rolling the word around in her mouth.  The ride is smooth, but he can tell that the elevator is rising.  She’s taking him further into the building, and for the life of him, Bucky cannot understand why.  “You’re not the soldier anymore, are you?”

“It’s still in me,”  Bucky says, watching his blurry reflection in the mirrored ceiling,  “It will never leave.” The woman is a blob of red next to the stretcher.

He has so many memories of cold Russian winters, recollections of Siberia, killing and slaughtering in the name of the Republic.  This woman is so familiar to him, she brings to mind feelings of pride, not pride in her accomplishments, but pride in the Republic.

There were three red-haired girls in the Red Room, he recalls this.  Bile burns in his throat. He had stood in the corner of a cold, wood-paneled cage while The Madams taught lessons no child should ever have to learn, waiting his turn to teach them violence for when the non-violence failed.

“You know the soldier is separate from you.”  She nods decidedly. “Good, you’ve broken the basic programming.  But, do you know who you really are?”

“I know.”

“James Buchanan Barnes,”  she says, staring at him with piercing green eyes.  Only one of the girls had such vibrant green eyes.

“Natalia Alianovna,”  he says wryly. Before, she was a dainty child with dreams of dancing like Maya Plisetskaya.  Then, she was his best student.

“I abandoned my father’s name when I abandoned my country,”  she says bitterly, and Bucky understands her resentment. All the girls were willingly donated by their families.   _Donated_ , as much as promises of supplies during severe winter months in return for a strong child, can be anything other than coercion.  She could have been dancing for the Bolshoi by now, if she was not given to the Red Room. He raises a brow, waiting, and her lips quirk in an almost smile.  “Romanoff. Call me Natasha.”

“Then, Natasha, call me Bucky.”  She taps at the band on her wrist, and the cuffs click, falling open.  Bucky sits up, rubbing his flesh and blood wrist. He climbs off the stretcher, and they leave it behind in the elevator.

She walks them into what appears to be a communal living area, attached to a large kitchen and bar.  It’s empty of people, but there’s a garishly large ‘Avengers’ scrawled on the far wall in red with gold accents.  It’s overwhelmingly tacky.

Natasha leans over the bar, and grabs a bottle of rye.  She cracks it open, and pours it straight into her mouth.  She catches Bucky staring, and says, “You still hit like charging bull.”

Bucky can say the same of her.  It feels as though she fractured the cartilage in his throat, maybe even his collarbone.  It will heal, but it still hurts.

She pulls a first aid kit from God knows where.  Looking at her reflection in a martini shaker, she cleans, and sticks butterfly bandages to the wound Bucky sliced into her forehead.

“You were just in medical, why didn’t you ask them to take care of it?”  He leans next to her.

She snorts.  “I’m not supposed to be up there without supervision,”  she says sarcastically, taking another swing of the rye, and Bucky is reminded of Wilson saying the exact same thing.  “J.A.R.V.I.S. only let me up because it detected you—yes, it’s annoyingly difficult to fool that damned computer—and I asked it to keep an eye out for you.”

“You knew I would come here?”  He asks, folding his arms over his chest.

“Sam told you where we were keeping Steve, we figured you’d come on your own.  Though we never expected you’d get that far into the building.” She glances up at him, then down at the bottle, picking at the label with a trimmed nail.  “When I walked in on you in Steve’s room, I still wasn’t completely sure if you were there to finish the job, or…”

“You were using him as bait,”  Bucky says, and that has him bitingly furious, his posture stiffening.  “You didn’t know if I was going to hurt him again, but you put him danger regardless.”  He prodes a finger at her chest, and for one second she looks at though she’s going to remove it, permanently, but then her face smoothes to a perfect mask.  “Why the fuck would you do that to him? You’re supposed to be watching his back.”

“While you can’t, you mean?”  She asks, and her face is as blank as a slate.

“Fuck you,”  Bucky spits.

She holds the bottle up, infuriatingly droll.  “Want some? It’s the good Canadian rye. Stark only stocks the best.”

He grabs it, and glaring at her, takes a long swing.  It’s spicy, and burns his throat, but he swallows it down even as it brings tears to his eyes.

[Tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/172706547872/art-for-jury-duty-they-caught-him-down-by-the)

 

**Ticker Tape Parade**

It’s high summer in Brooklyn, and there’s no escaping the dust.

The streets are covered in a fine layer of what was once silt from the Hudson, but is now the plague of every Brooklyner with a good head on their shoulders.  It coats his shoes, turning drab what was once polished leather. Dejected, he kicks them off when he enters the apartment. If he didn’t, Mrs. Rogers would have his hide.

A few years ago, he enlisted the help of his cousins to scrape down the Rogers’ rough floorboards to shining perfection.  Steve and his ma may live in a shabby tenement building, but that does not mean they have to live like animals. The floors shine no longer, but at the very least, splinters don’t sink into his socked feet as he wanders over to the kitchen table.

Steve’s smiling at him, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.  He’s young, younger than all of Bucky’s memories from before. Steve’s barely out of his teens, and his nose is too large for his face.  His tie lies undone, shirt unbuttoned so Bucky can see the concave shape of his breast bone. He’s got a bent leg propped up on the other rickety chair, the very picture of indolence.  If he had a cigarette in hand, he’d look like a model ready to be immortalized in paint.

A wrapped package lies on the table, and by the shape of it, Bucky knows exactly what it is.

_Bless all my lucky stars, Stevie, where in God’s name did you get that?_

Steve winks, tugging on the bit of twine wrapped around the package, the kraft paper falls to dramatically reveal a bottle of rye.

_Mr. Fitzpatrick gave it to me in exchange for repainting his charcuterie sign._

Bucky picks up Steve’s foot, and sits on the other chair, pulling it back into his lap once he’s settled.  There’s a persistent ache in his shoulders, and he rolls them to loosen the knots. Bucky’s not helping out at his zayde’s anymore, but even an office job can be tiring.  Seeing as he’s the best computer, and his manager refuses to hire another to help with the workload.

Bucky thumbs the knobby bone at Steve’s ankle.

_You were supposed to get paid for that._

Steve wiggles the unlabeled bottle, and the golden liquid inside sloshes around, glinting in the evening sun.

_I did.  Don’t worry, it ain’t Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s bathtub hooch coloured with molasses, it’s the proper stuff all the way from Canada._

Bucky chuckles, eyes fixated on Steve’s long fingers wrapped around the bottle’s neck.  His hands have always been so large. Then when he got bigger, they finally fit so well with the rest of him.

_Stevie, what would Father Hughes say?_

Steve’s always been religious, but that doesn’t make him a saint.  He’s too scrappy for it. Though Bucky's of the firm opinion that he’s sweet enough for canonization.  Heck, every time he made it through a bout of debilitating sickness, it should’ve been counted as a miracle.

Steve grins, and it’s a devilish smile to say the least.

_Father Hughes ain’t here, if you hadn’t noticed, Buck.  Or are you that eager for Sunday’s arrival?_

Bucky squeezes Steve’s leg.

_Yeah, what ‘bout Sarah?_

Steve bites his bottom lip, and Bucky knows.  He should have figured it out when she wasn’t there opposite Steve.  He can’t fault her. She doesn’t get to choose her shifts. He just wishes that making enough money to take care of Steve squared itself away with being present on important days.

_Ma’s gotta work until the next morning.  It’s just you, me, and this bottle of rye here._

Bucky leans closer, fingers slipping briefly beneath Steve’s hem.

_Gonna get us arrested._

Steve rolls his baby blues so hard that Bucky’s surprised they aren’t permanently adhered to the back of his head.  That’d be a damn shame, there’s nothing he likes better than Steve’s pretty eyes.

_Live a little, Buck.  Whaddya say, want some?  No?_

Bucky snatches the bottle from Steve, who throws his head back in loud, raucous laughter.  Normally old lady Eireen would show up with a wooden spoon, ready to whack him across the back of the hand for being so loud.  Today, Steve gets a free pass. He’s soon to be the quietest thing in the neighbourhood. On the way over Bucky spotted Lenny and his brothers dragging a massive trunk all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge from Chinatown.

_Yeah, I want some, you punk._

They move out to the fire escape, enameled mugs full to the brim with diluted rye, the bottle carefully hidden under Steve’s cot.  They tried drinking it straight, but Steve started coughing like he was going to hack up his lungs, and Bucky had to insist on mixing a little water in.

Lenny’s setting up his fireworks in the middle of the street.  Last year he’d lit roman candles on the sidewalk, and set fire to the sapling Steve’s landlord had planted out front.  This time he’s got what looks to be a bloody catherine wheel nailed to a makeshift post, locked and ready to go.

Steve folds the kraft paper into an accordian, then runs the edges along a jagged part of the railing.  Bucky cut himself on it when he was a little kid, and ninety years later he’s still got the scar. He still has all his scars, before and after Zola.  The experiments done on him didn’t make him perfect, like Erskine’s serum did Steve. Bucky doesn’t remember how he got most of his scars, but they’re there.  Even if his memory fails, his skin cannot lie.

The paper splits, falling apart into strips in Steve’s hands.  He throws the pieces up in the air, and they rain down on the both of them, a two man celebration.

_Happy birthday to me._

Bucky picks a strip out of his mug, and flicks it back at Steve who bursts out laughing.

Lenny strikes a match and holds it to the fuse, it catches with a vibrant spark, setting the oriental paper alight.  Dropping the match into the dust, he takes off down the street where the rest of his brothers wait, caps held to chests in anticipation.  Lenny’s loafers slap along the dusty street, raising a cloud of dust.

The catherine wheel takes off, spinning like a dragon spitting fire.  The post rattles dangerously, until the nail pops loose from the board.  Lenny drops into the dust as fireworks shoot out over his head, exploding into a mass of sparks.

Bucky wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulder, and tugs him close, pressing a smacking kiss to the side of his head.  He isn’t even drunk yet, but he thinks inebriation makes for a good excuse.

_Happy birthday, Stevie._

 

**The Burned**

Bucky swipes the tears from his eyes, and thankfully Natasha does not comment on it.

“I would never do anything to purposely put Steve in danger,”  Natasha says, but her words are unreassuring. “When Sam met you at church, he wasn’t sure you had broken the programming, but he knew you did when he talked with you in Central Park.”

“He knew who I was.”  Bucky states blankly, putting the bottle back on the counter.  Wilson knew all along, and he played Bucky like a fiddle.

She folds her arms over her chest, frowning.  “Up until we took down Project Insight, he believed what Steve believed.  That you died in the Alps. Sam and I went through the Triskelion files, and that’s when we found you.  I thought all the assets were burned when the Iron Curtain fell, but the Russian branch just sold you to the Americans.”

Bucky shrugs.  “The Americans used me once, put me in deep freeze, and left me there for twenty years.  I don’t know why.”

“I do,”  she says, but she doesn’t explain, instead she continues,  “Sam recognized Bucky Barnes, I just knew you as my teacher.  He grew up in this country, and he payed attention in history class, not to mention he has witnessed Steve staring at the pictures in his wallet on many occasions.”

“Peggy.”

“And you,”  she says, and her green eyes bore eerily into his.  Bucky looks away. “It’s ironic isn’t it? Hydra had an opportunity to use you to manipulate Steve, but they didn’t.”  Her words eat away at him like acid. “We didn’t tell Steve, we didn’t release your file, then we went looking for you on our own.  We thought we’d save him the agony, in case you were dead, or worse.”

“If you found me, before I…”  He chews his bottom lip, the rest of the sentence stuck on his tongue.

“He’s not dead.  His healing factor saved him.”  She points out, as if he needs reminding that it’s only because of the serum that Steve survived Bucky’s attempted assassination.

Bucky turns his head to the window, looking out at the city that’s changed so much from when he knew it.  Steve’s had years to get used to it. For all intents and purposes, he was doing just fine in the twenty-first century.  He had Natasha, he had Wilson, he had the church, and all the good work he was doing with those kids. Bucky took that away from him.  He’s always been taking everything from Steve.

“You care about him,”  he observes.

“I respect Steve.  And I want him better.”

“Will he ever wake up?”  Bucky asks.

“I don’t know,”  she says, and her voice is tight.

He tears his eyes away from the window, staring down at his metal fist.  “I did this to him,” he whispers.

“The soldier was ordered to execute him,”  she says simply, as if it that simple, “I know how Steve thinks, and if anything he’d be happy that the last thing he did was help break Hydra’s hold on you.”

Bucky snorts, shaking his head.  “That’s not as reassuring as you want it to sound.  Steve’s always been a self-sacrificing idiot.”

“Then, that’s one thing we can agree on.”  She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Come with me.”

Suddenly, Bucky remembers.  “The janitor—”

“It’s taken care of, Mr. Barnes,”  a voice says from nowhere, “An ambulance was called for Mr. Haines.”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,”  Natasha whispers in explanation when Bucky startles.

“Sorry,”  Bucky says, apologizing not to the tower’s A.I., but for everything he’s done before and after the programming broke.

“If you need anything, do not be afraid to ask,”  the voice says.

Bucky nods, as Natasha leads him down a connecting corridor, then up a flight of stairs.  She stops in front of a non-descript door, tells him to wait, enters, and a few moments later, emerges with a file folder in hand.  She gives it over to him, and says, “This is all we know.”

Paper-clipped to the front of the file is an image of his face behind frosted glass.  His cheeks are sunken in, and he looks like a corpse. He says nothing as he follows after her, flipping though the file as he walks.  There’s paperwork, everything from a small maintenance manual for his arm’s operation, to shipping notices. Apparently, after the dismantling of the Soviet Union, he was packed in a crate, and shipped across the Atlantic like cargo.  Beyond the paperwork are the photographs. Images of the people Bucky has murdered. He closes the file before he registers their names or faces.

“J.A.R.V.I.S. had the staff prepare you a room.”  She stops in front of another unmarked door.

“I—”  he starts, holding the file tight to his chest, but she interrupts before he can continue.

“I wasn’t anyone before I was the Black Widow, you at least were James Barnes.”  She taps the file. “Don’t let this convince you that you cannot be saved. I was, and if I could, so can you.”

“You were someone, before,”  Bucky argues, “And I was the one who took your dreams away.”

She opens the door with a swipe of a key card, then hands it over to him.  “I never could’ve been a dancer,” she says with a self-deprecating smile, “Flat feet.”  Somehow Bucky doesn’t believe that she would let something paltry like flat feet get in the way of what she wanted, but he appreciates the sentiment.  “Stark will return in a day. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there, until then, you can stay here.”

She leaves him alone in the middle of a big, empty room.  He walks over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. The bag he left behind in the hotel lies on top of the covers.  Bucky opens it, surprised to see the Smith & Wesson tucked inside. He’d locked it in the hotel’s safe before he left, and yet here it is.  They’re actually letting him keep it. If he wasn’t already convinced that Natasha trusts him, this would have hammered it home.

Bucky ignores the gun in favour of pulling out his phone.  He left the gun because he didn’t want to use it. He left his phone because he didn’t want it traced back to Jimothy McJohnson of Brooklyn.  He sets it aside on the bedside table, beside a shiny tablet with a note stuck on the surface saying that it’s for his use. Then, he gets down to sweeping the room for bugs.

Two hours later, after poking and prodding through every inch of the room, he decides he is not being monitored.  Bucky picks up the file, and starts reading. He ignores the mission reports; that’s for another, more sombre, day.  Right now he has questions about himself that need answering.

He knows his name.  He knows Steve’s name.  He recalls a few memories from his life in the thirties and forties, and from the long decades after while under Soviet control.  But, Steve isn’t the only person he knew. Bucky had a family. There was the woman who taught him to tailor, and there was the man who calls him ‘boychik’ with patent affection.

He shifts through the papers until he finds an image of himself in an army service uniform, smiling at the camera.  Everything about the uniform is proper regulation, except for the hat, tipped to the side. It was taken from a group photo: another uniformed officer has their arm thrown around his shoulders, but their face is cropped out.

“James Buchanan Barnes,”  he reads, “Born March 10th, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York to George Barnes, and Winifred Barnes, née Hubbard.”  It lists his parents’ birth and death dates, then those of his three youngest siblings. Rebecca was the last to go, dying of cancer in 1983.  His youngest sister, Rachel, was an army nurse that was killed in action in the early years of the Vietnam war, and the eldest, Leah, passed away in an automobile accident barely a decade after the Soviets got their claws in him.  Bucky does not remember them at all.

The American Hydra branch were very thorough in their research.  The report delves into his father’s background; Irish Catholic as far back as history can trace.  But, it’s his mother’s background that explains why he was put into cryo, and then never brought out.

The Soviets only cared that he was in good working order.  The American branch was a different beast altogether. Bucky has a vague understanding of what their fears stemmed from.  He lived through the heyday of the American Eugenics movement, he remembers the posters, and the protestors. He remembers Nazi Germany.

_Jimmy, people are always going to hate what they don’t understand._

His ma.  Winifred Barnes.  She used to call him Jimmy.  She had silver eyes like him, and brown curls framing a heart-shaped face.  His ma was beautiful, and she was Jewish. The report says his grandparents emigrated from the Pale of Settlement in Russia before his ma was born.  They Americanized their surname on the paperwork at Ellis Island. Hivarsky became Hubbard.

The Soviets either didn’t care, or they didn’t know who he was, but the Americans cared all too much.  There’s a box checked for his permanent termination on grounds of ‘inferior bloodlines,’ but the order was retracted on the next page, where it was decided he be frozen instead to preserve Zola’s work.

Bucky sighs, and tosses the file aside.  He rolls on his stomach and powers on his phone.  Immediately it vibrates, and Bucky nearly drops it.  He finds just about a million missed calls, and a good selection of voicemails from the foreman, Kolya, Marcel, and Gloria.  Thumbing the screen, he brings up the newest voicemail from Gloria. It was left only a few hours ago.

Her voice is breathy, even through the phone’s distortion.

“Jim, for God’s sake, Jesus fucking Christ.  Marcel’s having a conniption, and I cannot deal with that, especially not now.”  Something crackles through the line. Gloria’s panting roughly, like she’s in the middle of running a marathon.  “He’s saying that the mob’s offed you, or some nonsense. If I wasn’t sure that you’re a damn difficult sonofabitch to kill, I’d agree with him.”  The strain in her tone is apparent. “I’m in labour, asshole, so it would be real nice if you could call Marcel back. I’d like to have my baby in peace, thank you very much.”  The calls cuts out, and Bucky is left staring off into the distance as the automated machine asks if he’d like to save the message.

Quickly he exits out, and hits redial.  It takes only two rings before Gloria answers.

“You’re an asshole, Jim,”  she sighs through the line, sounding tired, but happy,  “I’ve got a cute baby girl in my arms, so you’ve caught me in a forgiving mood.”

“Bucky,”  he says, the correction spilling out automatically.

“Sorry?”

He swallows, and repeats clearly,  “My name is Bucky.”

To her credit, she barely even pauses before continuing,  “Alright then, Bucky. Is that short for anything?”

“Buchanan.  It’s my middle name.”

Gloria chuckles, and Bucky can hear a faint scratching and whining coming from her end of the line.  “That’s just one bad name after the other. What is wrong with your parents?”

“They’re dead,”  he says.

A long silence, but for the baby’s whimpers.  “Oh great, now I’m an asshole.”

“At least you’re a good mother,”  he says. Were babies always this loud?  This one seems to be making the strangest of noises to get Gloria’s attention.  “What’s her name?”

“Thanks,”  Gloria says wryly,  “Trevor wanted to name her Princess Sparkle Toes, which was just… not happening.  We decided on Judith, it was my gran’s name. Dad started crying when we told him.”

“It’s a good name.”  Bucky nods.

“Yeah…”  She pauses, and Bucky can almost hear her thinking.  “Are you okay? Marcel’s been worried sick.”

“Family stuff I had to take care of.”

She hums, apologetic.  “He’s not sure you’re gonna have your job when you get back.”

Bucky frowns at the bedspread.  There’s no need for Jimothy McJohnson to exist anymore, Bucky doesn’t need to hide from Hydra when he’s under the Avenger’s roof.  He needs to cut ties with the life he’s made in Brooklyn. It’s for the best.

“I don’t know if I’m coming back.”  He powers on past the lump in his throat.  “Tell Trevor and Marcel that I’m sorry.”

“Why don’t you tell them yourself?”  Gloria says, and her tone is biting.

“Wish I could, Gloria,”  he says, and he means every word.  “Take care of yourself.”

“Bucky—”  He hangs up the call, and immediately powers down the phone.  Removing the SIM card, he crushes it between his metal fingers.  He left nothing incriminating in the apartment. He removed all his surveillance gear before he left, wiped down every surface, and threw out everything in his fridge.

As the soldier, he knew he wasn’t coming back, and now as Bucky he has to accept it.  He clutches the phone in his hand. He never should have told Gloria his real name, he never should have called her back.

His heart hurts, and for one weak moment he wishes he called Marcel too.  He wants to see Trevor one last time, and ask him what he thinks of his now moustache-free face.  He wants to eat Aiden’s mediocre food, and drink his too-dark coffee. Now that he’s gone, who’s going to feed Bear anything other than feral pigeon?

He buries his head in his hands and curls up on the bedspread.  He misses his sewing machine, even though he lost it before he left.  He misses being Jimothy McJohnson, even though the name is decidedly fucking ridiculous.  He misses his mediocre Brooklyn life. What does he have in this damned tower besides guilt over what he did to Steve?

 _Steve_.  He has Steve.

 

**The Fetid**

Bucky stores the key card in his back pocket, as he slips out of the room.  Leaning against his door, he turns his head up to the ceiling. “J.A.R.V.I.S.?”  He ventures, wondering if the A.I. is even listening.

“Mr. Barnes?”

“Could you tell me where Steve’s apartment is?”  He asks, wincing. He doubts the A.I. will let him see where Steve’s been living.  It’s such an invasion of privacy, but damnit, Bucky wants to know. Call it morbid curiosity.

“Certainly, if you’d just follow my directions, I will guide you there, posthaste.”

The tower’s architecture is a Futurist’s wet dream come true.  If Bucky said that to Steve, he imagines he’d laugh. There’s an excess of fragmented walkways, and pointless decorative elements that do nothing but detract from the space.  If Bucky hadn’t already done research on the building before he showed up, he’d think he was aboard some alien spaceship.

He wonders if Steve hates what’s happened to design over the last seventy years.

During the thirties, the European styles were quickly going out of fashion, but Steve still ate up Beaux-Arts with a spoon.

Steve would tag along with Bucky to Manhattan, and he’d always end up at Grand Central, sketchbook in lap, drawing the statues, and gaping over the mosaics.  Bucky would show up at dusk and have to forcefully drag him away.

_Just a little longer, please, Buck, please?_

Bucky would relent of course, sitting beside him on the steps.  He’d watch over Steve as he drew, until it was too dark to see the paper.  Steve would be so tired, and they’d walk back to the garment district, Steve half collapsed on Bucky, practically asleep.  But, he’d be smiling so sweet. Back then, Bucky griped and moaned, but in truth, he didn’t mind a bit.

Before the war, Steve loved art and design with passion enough for Bucky to find room in his heart to love it too.  During the war, some things stayed the same, but other things changed.

He remembers a manor in Austria, full to the brim with stolen Nazi plunder.  There were paintings and statues, gilt frames and gold, but mostly Bucky remembers the pain on Steve’s face as he took it all in.  It was wonderous, so much art crammed into such a small space, but it was also terrible, knowing that all of it was stolen from people who were murdered.  It was a manor full of ghosts.

When J.A.R.V.I.S. unlocks Steve’s door, he’s reminded of that Austrian manor.  Steve’s apartment is also populated by ghosts.

There’s a smell hovering in the air, and in only a few seconds Bucky locates the source in the attached kitchenette.  Evidently no one has cleaned since January. There’s a gift basket on the countertop, or at least the remains of one.

Wrapped up pretty in acetate film, and tied with a bow, various exotic looking fruits rot within.  It’s sickly sweet, the smell of fermentation and peutrifying fruit, but Bucky has smelled worse. The acetate has prevented the flies from escaping, but Bucky can spot at least five hovering within, not to mention a large selection of wriggling maggots.  It’s swollen with ethylene, and Bucky gingerly goes to pick it up, intending to leave it by the front door so he can dispose of it before he leaves, when he notices the card.

Plucking it from the envelope, he doesn’t even think about what an invasion of privacy it is as he opens it.

‘Wishing you a Happy New Year!’

There’s no sender, just a generic printed message.  Bucky tosses the card back on the counter, frowning.  Bucky put Steve in a coma on January 18th, which means the basket sat ignored on the counter for eighteen days, unopened.  The Steve Bucky knew never let food go to waste. But, as he looks around the living space, he realizes just how sparse it is.  How uncomfortable it all seems. There’s generic furniture, and generic blinds, and generic artwork on the wall. None of it is anything like Steve.

Bucky takes a seat on the couch, and a small cloud of dust rises.  He clears his throat. “J.A.R.V.I.S.?” He asks.

“I’m listening, Mr. Barnes.”

“How long was Steve living here?”

“While not on missions, Captain Rogers occupied the suite non-consecutively for a total of two years, and two months.  From May 2012 until November 2013, after which he relocated to Washington, D.C. He returned in May of 2014, and has resided in the tower continuously until you shot him on January 18th, 2015—”

“Thank you, J.A.R.V.I.S.,”  Bucky interrupts quickly through pursed lips.  He knows the A.I. has no positive or negative feelings about what he did to Steve, which means he’s the one reading the vitriol into its tone.  That's all Bucky.

He gets up and wanders around, searching for something, anything that would indicate Steve's presence.  He finds nothing, until he cracks open the door to another room. He takes one look around and feels like collapsing to his knees.  It’s Steve’s bedroom.

The bed is made, hospital corners tucked perfectly, but as Bucky approaches, he notices a concave shape in the singular pillow.  He remembers flipping a penny for that responsibility.

_I’ll turn down the sheets, and you’ll fluff the pillows, deal?_

He sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing his hand over the soft duvet, and in a moment of weakness, he bends over the pillow, flaring his nose, hoping.  But, he smells nothing, not even detergent. Any trace of Steve that could have been there is long faded and gone.

He slides open the bedside drawer, takes in a bottle of personal lubricant, and closes it with a snap, heat flooding his face.  Feeling his heartbeat race a mile a minute, he dusts off his jeans as he rises, desperately trying not to think about Steve jacking off.  Desperately trying to forget all those times he woke in the middle of the night to Steve biting down moans. To forget watching his small back—the shifting of those thin shoulders—through lidded, wide-awake eyes.

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing a hand over his face.  His skin is still on fire. His brain is still a mess. Memories keep flooding back, unprompted, and when they do, it's like they’ve just happened.  He’s reliving the short life of James Buchanan Barnes over again, in the most inconvenient times and places. At least that’s how it feels.

He opens his eyes, and that’s when he sees it.  There’s an innocuous looking sketchbook sitting on the writing desk, posed beneath a blunt pencil.  The pencil is new, used only once, and never sharpened again. Three stationary holders sit on the desk.  Two of them are packed full of similarly blunted pencils. The last one holds unused pencils sharpened to a standard point—the way the manufacturer sells them—not at all how Steve likes them.  Steve always prefered the lead long, thick, and exposed. He prefered Bucky sharpening them for him.

The sight makes Bucky want to cry.

The sketchbook cover is some sort of cheap foam leather, peppered with scuff marks.  The edges of the paper are wrinkled, thickening the book to twice its normal size. It looks well used, and well loved.

Since he has no shame left to be spoken of, Bucky grabs a few blunt pencils, along with the sketchbook, and tucks the whole lot inside his hoodie.

 

**Do No Harm**

Bucky wakes to an unfamiliar ceiling, instead of a closet door.  He sits up, and rotates his shoulder in surprise. This is the first time in a long time that he hasn’t woken in any sort of pain.

Steve’s sketchbook sits on the bedside table beside him.  Bucky hasn’t opened it.

He has plans today.  He straps his combat knife to his thigh, and slips a few pencils into his hoodie pocket.  He goes to pick up the sketchbook, only for a thin card to fall to the carpet. He bends to pick it up.  It’s a business card for one Dr. Geetha Mehta. Bucky flips it over, seeing an address and appointment time written in Steve’s familiar scrawl.

He slips the card back into the sketchbook, but not before memorizing the name and phone number.

Natasha sits at the breakfast table in the communal space, a tablet in one hand, English muffin in the other.  She tips her head at him in greeting.

He opens the fridge door, checking out the contents.  There’s a television hooked up above the counter, and after opening three drawers, he finds the remote.  He tunes into his favourite morning show, and grabs a cast iron skillet from the hanging rack, setting out to make the shakshouka recipe he learned a few days ago.

Tracy Byrd and Ben Marshall sit on their couch, arguing their views on anti-vaxers.  Ben shows off just what an idiot he is, as usual. Bucky chuckles, winces, and boos when appropriate, sprinkling a healthy dose of cumin into the simmering tomato sauce.

“Would you look at that.  With a smile that pretty, I’d almost think he’s not a Soviet assassin.”  Bucky throws the knife he was using to chop parsley, and the intruder dodges in the nick of time, the knife embedding itself in the ‘g’ of Avengers with a vibrating snap.  Bucky grabs another knife from the block.

Before he can fling it Natasha says, not once looking up from her tablet,  “James, meet Tony Stark.”

The aforementioned Tony Stark lies sprawled on the floor, rose-coloured glasses crooked on his nose, suit disheveled.

“Damn, twinkle toes, you trying to kill me?”  He grumbles, scrambling to his feet, and fixing his suit with hurried motions.  It’s a very nice suit, bespoke, cut to perfection. Suits are tighter nowadays than they were before, and shoulder pads seem to have gone out of fashion, which Bucky thinks is a damn shame.

“Yes,”  Bucky deadpans.  He returns to chopping the parsley.  Stark mutters under his breath.

“Is this what I get for paying off the employee that you choked out.”  He adjusts his tie until it sits properly. “You should be saying thank you, Tony.”

“Thank you, Tony,”  Bucky says sincerely, sprinkling chopped parsley over the eggs.

Stark huffs.  “Well, that was less gratifying than I thought it was going to be.”

Bucky holds up the skillet in offering.  “Shakshouka?”

“Oh goodie, don’t mind if I do,”  Stark says, snatching up a fork, and digging in.  Bucky serves himself, and when he offers some to Natasha, she just shakes her head.

“Natasha told you everything?”  Bucky asks.

“She said you were the one who popped a bullet in Steve’s head, yes.”  Bucky winces. “She also mentioned that you were a brainwashed Soviet assassin, emphasis on the brainwashed.  Now, I never paid much attention to American history, but with Steve telling stories like the old grandpa he is, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t know who you are.”

“Steve talked about me?”  Bucky says.

“The trick was trying to get him to shut up.”  Stark rolls his eyes. “Romanoff said you were a POW.  Not to toot my own horn, but I have some experience in that department.  Heck, if you want to talk with someone previously brainwashed, I’d recommend Barton, but fuck knows where he is.”

“Classified,”  Natasha says, waving a hand over her shoulder as she packs up and leaves.

“I wasn't a POW,”  Bucky argues as the elevator doors slide shut after Natasha.

Stark snorts.  “So you’re saying you could have up and left any time you wanted, right?”  Bucky says nothing. “That’s what I thought.”

He and Stark eat at the kitchen counter, and every once in a while Bucky catches him eyeing his metal arm.  “That titanium?” Stark eventually asks, curiosity evidently getting the better of him.

“Titanium, aluminium, vanadium alloy,”  Bucky says, “But mainly titanium.”

Stark purses his lips.  “Vanadium is cytotoxic when isolated.  Nowadays, niobium alloys are much more commonplace in surgical implants.  Not to mention the biocompatibility is better. You must have to clean the parts often.”

Bucky rotates his shoulder, then shugs, most of what Stark said flying over his head.  “Haven’t had maintenance done on it in months. I heal fast, and there haven’t been any problems.”

Stark gets a hungry glint in his eye that’s gone too soon.  He offers with a smile, casual as can be, “I could take a look at it, if you want.  Just to see if you’re in tip top working condition.” Bucky stares at him for a long time, until the smile slides right off his face.  “Or I could go. Yeah, I think I’m going go.”

Stark makes to leave, but Bucky stops him.  “No sedation.”

Stark brows climb up his forehead, and he’s unable to hide his excitement.  “No sedation,” he agrees.

“And I want to see the doctor Steve was seeing.  The psychologist.”

For one moment Stark looks flummoxed, and Bucky hopes he did not reveal a secret Steve was hiding.  Stark clears his throat, and seems to move past it, even though Bucky can tell it takes a great deal of self-restraint on his part.  “Patient confidentiality dictates—”

“Not so I can ask about Steve,”  he interrupts, “For me. I want to get all this shit out of my head, before Steve wakes up.”

Stark snorts, looking like he’s about to say something about Steve not waking up, but Bucky glares hard enough to set his bespoke suit alight.  As if he needs the reminder of what he has done, especially from this stranger. Stark tsks, then waves his hand abstractly. “Fine. Consider it done, Jamie old boy.”

The programming may be broken, but only in the way that glass can be broken.  It’s shattered, but place the broken pieces back in a furnace, and it can be made anew.  All it would take is one trigger word for Bucky to forget that he is a person. It would take ten to turn him back into Hydra’s rampaging monster.  Then the electric chair to make it all permanent.

Bucky needs it gone, and before Steve awakens, or he’ll never be able to trust himself again.

It’s painfully easy to sneak back into Steve’s hospital room.  If J.A.R.V.I.S. notices him, it doesn't say a thing.

Bucky could spend his entire life looking at Steve, and never tire of it.  He’s the same as the last time Bucky was here, big, blonde, and defeated. Even when Steve would get laid flat out on his ass by neighbourhood bullies, he would always get right back up.  There’s no shaking off this.

He’s obviously being well taking care of, his hair is trimmed and combed, and he’s shaved smooth, not to mention his skin is clean as a whistle.

Bucky used to give Steve sponge baths whenever he’d come down with his yearly winter fever.  He’d sit him in front of their stove, a bucket of clean snow from the fire escape between them.  Steve’s eyes would be glazed over, limbs limp, and Bucky had to brace one leg behind him to support him so he wouldn’t fall over.  He’d shiver, looking so small, that Bucky would want nothing more to gather him up and wrap him close. He used to burn hot like a phoenix, and the only thing that would get his fever down were those baths.  Bucky used to get so scared, worried that the rheumatic fever would come back and take him away for good. Even when Steve was out of it, he worried about Bucky. Steve would mutter hoarse reassurances that he was alright, that everything was going to be fine, even as Bucky cried over him.

_As if I would die and leave you behind, who’d take care of you then, you big lug?_

Bucky lays the three blunt pencils he brought with him on the bed covers, and pulls out his combat knife.  He used to keep a pocket knife on him at all times for this purpose, but he has no idea what happened to it; if it fell into Hydra’s hands like he did, or if Steve has it.

With the first run of the blade along the pencil, he slices the whole tip off, lead and all.  Glancing up to Steve, he half expects to see him smirking, a joke on the tip of his tongue. But, Steve just lies there, chest rising and falling, and Bucky returns his attention to the pencil, his own chest as tight as ever.

He fucks up the first pencil beyond any hope, and chucks the stub into the bin.  For the next one he braces his wrists on his knees, and steadies his hands. He holds the pencil with his left hand, knife in the other, and is able to delicately shave away curls of wood.  The lead ends up an inch long, with no chips, and it doesn’t wobble in the casing. He lays it on the bed, and starts on the last one.

Bucky takes Steve's sketchbook, and flips it open to a blank page, careful not to look at the drawings.  He's always asked Steve's permission before looking, and that has not changed. He puts the pencil to paper, and starts to write a letter.

The lead is in need of another round of sharpening when the door opens, and a nurse walks in.  He stops in his tracks when he notices Bucky, and his lips dip in a severe frown.

“You're not supposed to be in here,”  the nurse says harshly, “Not without supervision.  Captain Rogers’ condition is delicate.”

“So supervise me,”  Bucky says, closing Steve’s sketchbook, tucking it back in his hoodie.

Bucky and Natasha fought only a few inches away from Steve.  They knocked out some of his equipment in the tussle, but nothing happened to him.  Bucky sitting by his bedside is not going to hurt his condition. The monopoly the medical staff holds over Steve is ridiculous.  Bucky may have been the cause of his condition, but there’s no reason Wilson or Natasha shouldn’t be allowed to visit him.

The nurse frowns deeply.  “If you don't leave this very instant, I will call security.”

Bucky freezes, then shifts to cover it up, laying each pencil on the bedside table.  He slides his knife up his sleeve. “Where did you study nursing?” He asks conversationally.

The nurse frowns.  “Queens where I grew up,”  he says through clenched teeth, picking up the chart by Steve’s bed, he glances over it.  His eyes don’t move as they would if he really was reading. “Sir, you need to leave now.”

“You a first, or second generation immigrant?”  Bucky asks, tilting his head to the side, barely blinking.  He could cut the tension in the room with a knife. “My grandfather was also from Russia.”

The nurse pulls his phone from his pocket, no doubt calling security.  He sounds harried as he says, “I'm not an immigrant. My family is colonial.”

Bucky shifts his grip on his knife.  “Is that so? Funny, because your voice has traces of an accent endemic to the Vologda oblast.”  Where there used to be a major Soviet Hydra cell, but Bucky does not need to clarify that, the _nurse_ already knows it.  He disconnects the call, as Bucky adds,  “Your long vowels need to be longer.”

The Hydra agent runs, but Bucky is ready.  He darts over and grabs him by the back of the neck, throwing him to the ground, stomping on his gut to prevent him from getting up again.  The agent heaves, spitting up blood. His eyes loll in pain as he looks up at Bucky, and something like determination passes over his face. Bucky sighs, and before the agent can bite down on the cyanide capsule that’s standard issue for every Hydra agent, Bucky reaches down and forces his mouth open.

The agent’s feet kick out, scraping along the floor.  He bites Bucky’s metal hand, but all that does is crack his front teeth.  He’s screaming, and Bucky’s surprised no one is coming to investigate.

“Of course,”  Bucky mutters,  “J.A.R.V.I.S., please make sure that no one on the medical staff leaves the premises.”  Hydra was able to infiltrate the American government, so of course they did the same of the Avengers.  

“Mr. Barnes, I have taken the initiative of sealing this floor from exit.  Mr. Stark is on his way.”

Bucky holds open the agent’s jaw, and feels along the molars using the pressure sensors on his fingers.  When he finds one that has a different texture than the others, he yanks it from the agent’s mouth, capsule and molar in all.  The agent shrieks, hands and feet thumping. Bucky checks the other side of his mouth, finding it free of any more capsules. He drops the agent, and he lies writhing on the the floor, mouth and face smeared with blood.

Stark bursts into the room, his recognizable Iron Man suit covering only his arms, repulsor canons held up and glowing blue.  His eyes widen like he’s seen a ghost, hair in disarray, and he’s wearing a tee with holes in it, welding goggles balanced on his head.  Bucky must have caught him at a bad time.

Bucky wonders what he looks like to Stark: metal arm covered in blood, a whimpering Hydra agent in scrubs, also covered in blood, at his feet.  Bucky clears his throat, and drops the cyanide capsule superglued to a tooth on the floor, crushing it to dust beneath his boot. “You need to overhaul your hiring practices,”  he says.

“Haal Hy-laa!”  The agent exclaims, and Bucky kicks him in the gut.

Stark lowers his repulsors.  “First of all, I need a drink, second of all, holy shit.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references the suicide of an unnamed minor character, deals heavily with someone suffering from MDD, and PTSD, and it gets pretty heavy at some points, so take that into account, and take care of yourself.
> 
> I know practically nothing about psychology, or medicine, everything comes from a psych 101 course I took years ago, and wikipedia-fu, so if I get something terribly wrong, you have been forewarned.
> 
> Also, if it wasn’t apparent, this isn’t the last chapter because apparently I don’t know how to judge how big chapters are going to be anymore, and I found a good place to leave it off.

**Raw**

Bucky thinks about being strapped to tables.

He's remembering the war.  Before, he could only recall flashes: Azzano, little tidbits of a conflict he prayed to forget altogether, and one blessed memory of Steve sitting by his bedside.

Memory is a funny thing.  He barely remembers anything about his sisters, but he can perfectly recall the froliking Georgian courtiers on the china dish passed down five generations in Steve’s family.  Dr. Mehta says he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he fell, which explains why most of the war was a blur, and why only certain memories from Brooklyn are clear.

Bucky doesn't recall the fall itself, but he remembers the sensation of it.  His heart in his throat, the icy wind in his hair. It's recorded in the history books.  Bucky Barnes sacrificed himself to save Captain America. But, he knows it's not true. He didn't sacrifice himself, nor did he try to save Captain America.  He tried to save Steve, and he never intended to fall in his stead, he never intended to fall at all.

He looks up things about James Buchanan Barnes, and there's no shortage of information to be found.  Everything from exhibits, to academic papers, to books. People with doctorates debate the ways his Catholic and Jewish heritages shaped him as a person.  They talk about his zayde, and how he and other Jewish tailors founded Manhattan's garment district. They talk about his skills with a gun, saying that he was the best sharpshooter in the European theatre.  They say that he accumulated the most kills among the Howling Commandos, even more than Captain America himself.

They call him a war hero, but Bucky knows better.  He isn't a hero.

He's just a wolf in sheep's clothing, he always has been.  He charmed and wooed women to fill the hole loving Steve left in his heart.  He murdered people who did not deserve to die. He killed kids in the war. Kids who got conscripted, and kids who joined with deluded dreams of glory.  Kids who didn't even get the chance to beg for mercy at the end of his crosshairs.

He murdered people who deserved to die, but only God is allowed to pass that judgement, not man, and certainly not him.

Natasha says he can be better; she was able to be better, but she was an innocent child, and he's always been this way.

He's remembering the war, now that his brain is finally healing.  He finally understands. All the good in him was taken from other people.

 

**Golden Idols**

Bucky’s free to wander the city.  Over the weeks since he discovered that Hydra infiltrated the Avengers’ medical team, he’s been exploring Manhattan by foot.  Anything to get out of the tower, now that Steve’s awake.

Stark—Tony, as Bucky now thinks of him—made him a set of earplugs.  When powered on, they cancel even the sound of his own thoughts. If there’s one thing that’s become abundantly clear, it’s that while the American branch of Hydra was burnt to the ground with the Triskelion, it never truly died.  Hydra is a global enterprise. Every single one of the medical professionals that took care of Steve, from the nurses, to the general practitioner, to the neurologist, to the goddamned physiotherapist were Hydra. Only Steve’s—and now Bucky’s—psychologist was not.

While the medical team was not high-level enough to know Bucky’s trigger words, there are still people out there who do.

Thus, the earplugs.

Bucky relaxes in the American wing of the Met, bright light filtering in from the massive windows far above.  He has an appointment to keep in a few hours, but until then, he has time. He’s been coming back every day for the past week.  Not always at the same time, of course. He’s fucked in the head, but he isn’t stupid enough to make a habit out of things. Habits are trackable.

Bucky hasn’t been sleeping well, and he appreciates the downtime.  He finds the Met peaceful. Busy in a way that isn’t oppressive. He’s just a piece of the background here.  Everyone’s too busy looking at the art to bother looking at him.

Someone sits on the bench beside him, and Bucky doesn’t have to turn his head to know who it is.

“Did Natasha tell you where I was?”  Bucky asks, tapping the skin behind his left ear to turn the device down.  It still blocks the faraway sounds, but he can hear Sam just fine. Like Tony, Sam has only grown in familiarity over the past few weeks.  He reminds Bucky of Gloria, strangely enough.

Sam leans back on spread arms, kicking his feet out in a sprawl.  “Steve did. She must have told him.”

“Traitor,”  Bucky huffs, adjusting the lines of his leather gloves.  Nowadays he never leaves the tower without them. It was pityingly easy to sneak past the metal detectors, but leaving his arm uncovered would attract too much attention.  He’s going to have to move on soon anyway, the guards are starting to recognize him.

“Don’t feel bad.”  Sam pats him on the knee.  “Nat likes Steve more than she likes a lot of people.”

Bucky huffs, and pretends that his voice does not waver when he asks,  “How is he?”

Sam shakes his head, and gestures zipping his mouth shut.  “Man, that’s not my place. You’d know if you met with him.”

Bucky’s mouth twists, and he looks away to the bronze statue of Diana the huntress standing on her pedestal, the sunlight glinting off her golden form.

As it turns out it’s very easy to avoid someone in a building of the tower’s size.  All it took was asking J.A.R.V.I.S. to warn him anytime there was a chance he could run into Steve.

“You know I won’t,”  Bucky says.

He hasn’t seen Steve in person since before they locked Natasha in a room with one of the Hydra agents they captured.  A few minutes later, and she emerged with the long list of drugs that Hydra used to keep Steve in an induced coma.

Tony had brought in another medical team, double checked, triple checked, and then quadruple checked their credentials, then the credentials of everyone they know, and some.  Only then did they begin dissecting the barbiturate cocktail that was mixed into the I.V. bags, and into the shaving cream used on Steve every other day, and into the slurry he was being fed.  They found traces of nerve agent in the lining of his stomach, experimental opiates in his skin cells, and poison concentrated in his hair follicles.

Hydra was experimenting on Steve.  Recording their findings, right under the Avengers’ noses.

Bucky wasn’t brought out of cryo to kill Steve.  He was sent to put him into a coma. The Winter Soldier never misses a single shot taken, and always executes a job perfectly.  Steve did not _survive_ Bucky shooting him, Hydra had him exactly where they wanted him.

“He asks about you,”  Sam says.

Bucky chews his bottom lip raw.  “And what do you tell him? The same things you tell me?”

Steve woke up weeks ago, and Bucky refused to be there.  He sat alone in the dark while J.A.R.V.I.S. streamed the feed from the hospital room to his tablet.  The screen was too small for Bucky to see the exact moment Steve opened his eyes. But, when Steve registered Sam sitting at his bedside, holding his hand, he smiled so bright, it took Bucky’s breath away.

Sam snorts.  “I tell him everything he wants to know.”  Bucky whirls on Sam, betrayed, but Sam just frowns.  “Steve _wants_ to see you, so in my books he deserves to know what’s going on.  Bucky, he thought you were dead for years. When Nat and I told him otherwise, you should have seen the look on his face.  At first he thought we were playing him, but then it was like everything he ever wanted had come true. I’ve never seen him so happy.  He was ready to hop right out of bed to get to you—”

“And then you told him what I did, and he changed his mind,”  Bucky finishes.

“What?  No.” Sam frowns at him like he thinks he’s an idiot.  “He never stopped wanting to see you, but he’s respecting your space.”

“He doesn’t want to see me,”  Bucky corrects, “He wants to see his best friend, and I’m not that person anymore.”

Sam sighs, long and heavy.  “Yeah, Bucky Barnes was a brilliant strategist, and you’re a dumbass.”

Bucky glares, and pointedly switches the earplug back on.  Sam rolls his eyes, and turns his face up to the sun. Conversation over.

He made a promise, and he intends on fulfilling it, before he sees Steve.  No matter what anyone else says, he needs all this shit out of his head. It’s the only way he can keep Steve safe.

And so, Bucky sits beside Sam, and thinks about his appointment later on in the day, how he will allow himself to be strapped to a table, so a technician can take pictures of his fucked up brain.

 

**The MRI**

Bucky swallows as the nurse secures the brace around his neck, and then the cage around his head.  Before, when she explained exactly what would happen during the MRI, she said it would stop him from moving as the machine worked.  Even a little agitation could ruin the imaging. Better to do it once, and get it over with, than have to do it again.

She secures a strap around his metal bicep, and then his wrist.  There are no ferromagnetic components in the arm, but he supposes that the restraints are for her peace of mind.  Bucky’s just thankful that her scrubs have little cartoon dinosaurs on them. There’s absolutely nothing about her that would bring to mind Hydra.

He thanks her when she’s done, and she smiles kindly, eyes crinkling at the corners.  Someone in the control booth is playing blues, humming along, tapping their fingers to the beat.  It’s so normal, so mundane. Someone with a sense of humor decorated the walls with beach decals: starfish and palm trees galore.  Bucky closes his eyes, and the machine roars like the ocean in the small sterile room.

The table moves forward, drawing him into the belly of the beast.  Bucky shivers once, then goes still.

 

**The Unprogramming**

Dr. Geetha Mehta sits in an armchair across from Bucky.  She is unnervingly composed, even as he’s being consumed by her squishy patient couch.  He shifts, and only manages to sink deeper into the cushions. Dr. Mehta doesn’t have the decency to laugh at the ridiculous image he must make.  She simply adjusts her glasses.

There’s a wall to wall lightbox behind her, displaying a curated selection of pictures from the inside of his head.  It surrounds her in a glowing halo of blue light, like an angel come down from heaven to fix his head.

She’s an older woman, about Aiden’s age, working for the Manhattan branch of the Veterans Affairs.  When they met, she neither confirmed nor denied that she was Steve’s doctor with a poker face to rival the most hardened career criminal.  Bucky knows Steve isn’t seeing her anymore, if he was, she would have recommended him to someone else. Though, as one of the few clinical neuropsychologists practicing in the state she is uniquely qualified to handle his case.

She crosses her legs, hands folded over one knee, and says,  “Your brain reminds me of Swiss cheese.”

“Thanks,”  Bucky says wryly.

She ignores his sass, she’s very good at that.  She asks a few questions about the MRI, and how it made him feel.  Bucky shrugs off her concern, but she looks at him knowingly, he isn’t fooling her at all.

She doesn’t let him take the easy way out.  She dives right into his time in Siberia, where they left off from the last session.  “From what you told me about the chair, it seems to have been intended as a conditioning chamber of sorts.  Nowadays, Skinnerian behaviorism is largely outdated, but it was popular in the fifties and sixties.”

Bucky just raises a single brow.  He never explicitly told her who he was, but she’s smart enough to have figured it out, especially when he talks about making it through World War II, and she doesn’t act like he’s out of his mind.

“In its most basic form, desired behaviors are rewarded with positive reinforcement—”

Bucky snorts.  “Doc, the closest I got to a reward under their control was a cold shower with a pressure washer, if I was lucky.”

“—and punishment is meant to decrease undesired behaviours.”  She pauses, considering. “Bucky, the fact that you’re still associating a cold shower with something positive, speaks for itself.”  She nods, jotting down something on her notepad.

He frowns, drumming his fingers on his knee.  “I never said the shower was a reward.”

Dr. Mehta looks at him over her glasses.  “Of all the atrocities that were done to you, you mentioned that chief among them were your captors leaving you to stew in your own filth.  A shower, regardless of how it was delivered, must have seemed like a great reward after months without one.”

He picks at a hangnail, pulling on the skin until it stings.  Bucky purses his lips. The skin finally peels away, and a drop of red beads from the tear.

“They would put me in the chair,”  he starts quietly, “Send a continuous current through me, just something to keep me on my toes.  Then, they’d ask me questions, like my name, my rank, my service number, things about my family, and if I answered like a person would, they would raise the voltage and shock me even more.”

Dr. Mehta nods.  “They wanted you to associate personhood with punishment.”

Bucky sinks even further into the couch.  “If I answered as the soldier would, they would turn down the current.  They did this for days, weeks, months, and at first I resisted, but then I started saying what they wanted to get them to stop shocking me, but they never did, they just kept putting me back in the chair.”  He pauses. “It was unavoidable, and I just accepted it.”

“Did you ever attempt escape?”

“Once, that I can remember,”  Bucky says, sucking the blood from his skin, the taste of iron on his tongue.  It hurts, as do all of his open wounds.

“Tell me about it?”

He’d strangled a woman, a messy kill, but Hydra wanted it to look like a crime of passion.  It was his first mission on U.S. soil. The American and Soviet Hydra branches were estranged during the height of the cold war.  It was of the utmost importance that he completed the mission under the radar. It all went as Hydra intended, until he looked out a window and saw the city where he grew up.  In one short moment, the programming fell to pieces.

“It broke.  Years of conditioning just went away, and I… I ran,”  Bucky says, clenching his fists, “But they caught me.”

“And then?”

“They used the trigger words on me,”  he admits, “I went away, and the soldier was left.”

“The trigger words,”  Dr. Mehta repeats, bobbing her head like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.  A bunch of silver hairs fall from her tightly made bun. “See, the problem with operant conditioning is that the human mind is too complex, and free will is too powerful.  Nowadays, patients suffering from PTSD are trained to overcome episodes by thinking past the emotions; to talk themselves down from an attack. A human subject can break free of conditioning simply by recognizing it for what it is.  Now, let’s talk about what makes your programming break.”

“Whenever I see something I am emotionally connected to,”  Bucky explains, “It’s like the sun coming out on a foggy day, my mind just clears, and my need to complete a mission goes away.  The trigger words were put in place to circumvent that.” Bucky shivers, even though the room is warm. “They reset me, turn me back into an obedient soldier.  Then they’d put me back in the chair to make me forget.”

“The conditioning was psychological, but the triggers are physical.”  Dr. Mehta gestures behind her to the wall of images, pointing to scattered white spots among the black and grey.  “Targeted electrical shocks would sear lesions into specific areas, those associated with memory, perception, and reasoning.  The damage is so extensive, it brings to mind various neurological degenerative diseases.” She turns back to Bucky. “There is medication I can prescribe to slow that kind of deterioration, but for you, the damage is already done.  It isn’t worsening, it’s healing.”

“I’m remembering,”  Bucky says, “The good and the bad, I’m remembering it all.”

She smiles.  “I’d say it’s just a matter of time until your brain heals fully.”

He takes a deep breath.  “And the trigger words?”

“Once the damage heals, they should no longer function.  They won’t be associated with trauma, and they will become defunct.”

Bucky leans forward in anticipation.  “How long do you think it will take?”

Her smiles fades.  “Bucky, I’m sorry, but I have no idea.  I have no frame of reference to work from.  In six months time, I can order another MRI to ascertain your progress, then we can arrive at an estimate, but until then, there’s nothing more I can do.”

“Six months,”  Bucky repeats, stunned.  Six months until he will know for certain that he is getting better.

“To a year, I’m so sorry, but the brain is the most complicated organ in the body, and damage done to it, even with your cellular turnover, takes time to heal.”

Bucky stares at her blankly.

In the cemetery where America buries its fallen heroes, there’s an placeholder grave with his name on it.  Seventy years ago an artisan sat in his workshop, memorializing his name into stone with chisels, as he was electrocuted to forget it.

“A year,”  Bucky spits bitterly.  He knows what he should be thinking, He’s lived more years as the soldier, than he has as Bucky.  He’s lived more years without Steve, than he has with him. What’s a year, or two, or three more?

Bucky feels moisture gathering in his eyes.  He bends over, hiding his face between his thighs, as the tears fall without discrimination.  For what must be the millionth time, Bucky curses his own convictions.

 

**You, Hardwire**

His metal arm rests on the table between him and Tony, one of the maintenance hatches open to the lab.  He can’t feel anything in the arm as Tony sorts through the wires, humming as he refers to translations of Russian cyrillic from the inside of the cover.  Every once in awhile he uses a robotic camera to bring up an image of the script on the screen, asking Bucky to translate a new segment. Tony may be an engineering genius, but languages are not his strong suit.

“You know what the problem is with military prostheses?”  Tony says conversationally, looking up from his arm. He’s wearing a set of magnification goggles that make him look like a strange bug.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, knowing that Tony isn’t asking a question.  He’s a talkative man, and Bucky prefers to just let him have at it. Sometimes it isn’t inane garbage, but when it is, he can tune it out.

“They give them these passive devices, and they just drag after the patient.  Sure they keep them balanced, and psychologically it’s better to have something there instead of nothing.  But, that’s not a limb, that’s…” He waves his arm in the air, searching for a word. “...a cup holder.”

Bucky thinks about Aiden, and how he runs his business just fine with his _cup holder_ prosthesis.  He rolls his eyes sarcastically.  “I’m sure there are a lot of people happy to hear you say that—ouch!”  He glares at Tony, but he doesn’t look sorry at all for poking Bucky in the thigh.

Tony continues, slipping the screwdriver through the cracks in Bucky’s arm, popping open another hatch.

“The military needs to develop active prostheses.  You should see some of the stuff that’s on the private market.  They got these legs that are programed to read the subtle shifts of muscle groups, calculate the likelihood of a certain action, and then move in the way the leg that was supposed to be there should.  It’s a limb built on code, none of this analogue stuff.” He taps the main pneumatic cylinder in his arm with the screwdriver.

“Sounds expensive,”  Bucky points out.

Tony huffs.  “You know how much money the U.S. spends on the military?  Over fifty percent of the discretionary budget, you know what they spend on veterans?  Five percent.”

“It’s always been that way,”  Bucky says. In the trenches they’d get all the ammo they could possibly need, but there was always an antibiotics shortage.  Once a man is unable to fight, he stops being useful.

“Doesn’t make it right.”  Tony sweeps his hand, bringing up a new set of cyrillic for him to translate.

Bucky rolls his eyes.  “You’ve got money, do something about it if you don’t like it.”  He scans over the Russian. “It says that the plates are asbestos lined for heat protection.”

“Wait.  What?” Tony slaps his hand over his nose and mouth, eyes wide.

“I’m joking,”  Bucky says with a wicked smirk,  “The asbestos was removed in the seventies.”

“Hydra put asbestos in your arm?”  Tony says with a grimace. “They really are evil.”

“Mr. Barnes, I apologize for interrupting,”  J.A.R.V.I.S. says, drawing Bucky’s attention away from Tony,  “But Captain Rogers is in the elevator, he should be arriving shortly at your location.”

Bucky’s playful mood evaporates, and he’s instantly on his feet.  Tony’s wheely chair gets shoved away, as panicked, Bucky launches past him for a screwdriver.  He jabs his arm with it, and the hatches shut with a metallic click.

“Geez,”  Tony says, wincing when the screwdriver makes a screeching sound on the metal.  “Some self respect, Bucky-boy.”

“Where is your private elevator?”  He demands in a rush.

“Don’t have one.  There’s only one exit,”  Tony says, a suspiciously wide grin on his face,  “If you don’t count the helipad, and you don’t mind being a splat on the pavement.”

“I don’t have time for games, Stark,”  Bucky threatens, holding out the screwdriver, metal end pointed right at Tony’s face.

“C’mon, just talk to him, it won’t be that bad.  You’ll both quit being such sad fish, and J.A.R.V.I.S. can finally stop devoting huge chunks of processing power to keeping tabs on Steve for you.”

“I will stab you,”  Bucky threatens lowly.

“Such violence,”  Tony chides, “You should channel your passions towards more constructive endeavors.  May I suggest: Steve.”

“I’m not joking,”  Bucky says through clenched teeth, eyes shooting around the lab for a hiding place.  The elevator dings, and Bucky’s hand shakes so much, he drops the screwdriver. It clinks against the concrete floor, loud over the rush of blood in his ears.

Later, he’ll wonder how he managed it, when there’s nothing he wants more than to see Steve.

“Tony, you said you have something to show me?  This better be quick, I have to be at the precinct in a— _Bucky_?”

Bucky ducks his head, and marches straight for the elevator.  He doesn’t look up once, just keeps his eyes locked on his shoes, even as Steve says his name again.  Steve’s voice cracks, and Bucky knows he’s crying. Fuck, he’s always hated it when Stevie cries. There’s nothing worse, because it barely ever happens.  Bucky cries on a goddamned hair trigger, but the only time he ever saw Steve tear up was at his mother’s funeral, and even then it had only been a few drops.

Masochistically, Bucky glances out of the corner of his eye, but all he can see is the boot cut of Steve’s all American denim, and his motorcycle boots.  Natasha mentioned that he has a motorcycle, a Harley, like the one he rode in the war. Bucky’s nose flares, Steve smells like river water, and motor oil.  His jeans and boots are splattered with mud, like he’s been taking the bike out of the city.

Bucky passes right by Steve, and walks into the open elevator, pressing the button for his floor.  The doors shut, and he never once looks up.

 

**Dogmatic**

During their next session Dr. Mehta asks about his week.  Bucky gives her the rundown; he went to the Met again, he caught a baseball game, he went jogging with Sam in Central Park, he cooked dinner for Natasha and she taught him how to mix drinks, he’s ignoring Tony.

She asks why he’s ignoring Tony, and Bucky considers making up some excuse, but eventually decides not to.  There’s no reason for him to hide what happened. She’s not going to judge him.

“He tried to make me see Steve,”  he says, and explains what happened in the lab.

“And that bothers you,”  she says with a frown, “Why don’t you want to see him?”

“I made a promise to myself,”  Bucky says with conviction, “Until I’m better, I won’t risk putting him in danger.  It's already bad enough that I’m staying in the tower.”

Dr. Mehta nods, writing something down.  “You’re wearing the earplugs, aren’t you?”

“Of course,”  he says firmly,  “I never leave the Avengers’ private floors without them.”

“Since you have the earplugs, and there’s no chance of you hearing a trigger word, shouldn't it be safe for you to see Steve?”  She asks, “It’s important to have a support system, and it’s clear you have the makings of one. It’s good to build up relationships with people, and from what I can tell, you’re letting it happen.”  She pauses pointedly. “Except with Steve.”

“I have to take care of him, that’s my responsibility,”  Bucky insists, brow furrowing into a deep frown.

Dr. Mehta sends him a knowing look.  “Because you’ve been taking care of him your whole life?”

“I gotta look after him.”  He pleads for her to understand, but her expression goes completely blank.

“Even at the cost of what is good for you?”  She asks quietly.

Bucky laughs humorlessly, scrubbing a hand through the short hairs on his head.  “Especially then.”

 

**The Undertow**

Bucky has nightmares, and with the nightmares come the memories.

He sits on an outcropping by the shores of North Africa, the blue Mediterranean laid out like an endless void in front of him.  It’s night, which means all lights must be extinguished, so the enemy can’t know where they are.

He’s got a radio with him, and it’s his job to scan the horizon, eyes and ears sharp for approaching aircraft.  His gun can do nothing against a German and his bombs, but he can radio up to support to prepare anti-aircraft artillery.  They’d have only a few minutes warning, but the boys sleep with their hands on the triggers. They’ll be ready.

He earned a sergeant’s three-bar chevron in the training camps of Wisconsin, but this is his first posting, and he is eager to prove himself.  The men in camp are not as green as he is. Bucky tried introducing himself, and some were friendly, but others were not. Bucky won’t ever be a commissioned officer—he doesn’t have the connections—but he could potentially make staff sergeant if he earns the respect of the men.  It would mean a pay rise, enough money to send back to his family, and to fully cover the rent on his and Steve’s apartment.

Something catches his eye, and he looks to the beach.

There’s been an outbreak of dysentery in the camp.  At first that’s why Bucky thinks the poor bastard stumbling to the shoreline is out so late.  He must be looking for some respite from the blight. Bucky thinks this, even as the man doesn’t stop at the edge of the water, but walks right in.  His clothes are practically rags, and they hang off his shoulders. He’s too far away, and the waves too loud, for him to hear Bucky shout a warning about sharks in the shallows.

The man doesn’t stop, he wades into the swell, arms stretched out in front of him as though he’s reaching for something.  He’s just a head, bobbing in the deep sea when Bucky realizes that something is terribly wrong. He jumps to his feet, and takes off down the sandbank.

Months later he’ll remember this incident and think back over how foolish it was to abandon his posting for a man who wanted to die, when it was his job to forewarn the ones that wanted to live.

By the time Bucky makes it to the shore, breathing heavy in exertion, the man is nowhere to be seen, and all he can hear is the deafening roar of the waves.

At first Bucky thinks he was a ghost, or maybe a vodyanoi from the stories his bubbeh used to tell.  That’s not how people kill themselves. They go out violent; a gun to the head, a sword to fall on, a rope around the neck.  Men don’t just give up their lives without a struggle.

Then, he spends a few more weeks in the field, bombs dropped on their camps every night, if the anti-aircraft guns can’t shoot them down first.  He watches the men he befriends die in explosions, and even worse he watches them die slow, wracked high with fever and infection. He starts thinking a gentle death would be a blessing in this fucking war.

By the time he saves the life of some posh uniformed officer just outside of Algiers, and is promoted to staff sergeant, the extra money is the last thing on his mind.  He’s reassigned to the European theatre with the rest of the 107th.

In Austria Bucky crouches in foxholes, sharpshooting rodents and Germans alike.  Between getting gunned down, blown up, and rotting from the inside out, drowning starts looking downright sweet.

 

**Tremble**

Bucky’s in a bad way.  He hasn't slept in what feels like years.  The nightmares keep him up, just as much as the memories do.  He's got dark circles under his eyes, and he hasn't shaved in a few days, his stubble coming in dark.

When he talks to Dr. Mehta about it, she just shakes her head.  

“I can’t prescribe anything for you that’ll make this better, Bucky,”  she says, “It won’t work with your metabolism.”

He rubs his forehead,.  “What about tranquilizers, like the stuff they use on bears?”  he suggests, only half joking. His life was better in Brooklyn, when he didn’t know anything, when he was oblivious to his past and his present.  “I need to sleep.”

Dr. Mehta frowns.  “We can’t do medication, but we have other methods.  What do you do to feel safe, is there a place you like to go?”

Immediately Bucky thinks of Steve, but he dismisses that just as quick.  “Brooklyn,” he says instead, “I feel safe in Brooklyn.”

“Then go to Brooklyn,”  Dr. Mehta says slowly. “Pack an overnight bag, check into a hotel, stay with friends, just leave Manhattan behind for a few days, and go back home.  I want you to feel comfortable, and if Brooklyn is the only place you can, go.”

“I can’t,”  Bucky says, clenching his jaw against the visceral longing that bubbles up anytime he even thinks about Jimothy McJohnson’s life.

“Why not?”  Dr. Mehta raises her eyebrows.  “Bucky, I need you to think about this.  Why are you in Manhattan?”

Bucky looks away, chewing his bottom lip.

He leaves the session tense and confused, returning to the tower in a terrible state of mind.  When he tries to sleep at night, he only manages to toss and turn. The bed feels too large, too exposed to the room at large.  Bucky ends up clearing out the closet. He curls up in a corner, trying to banish images of a destroyed landscape, the smell of mud and burning vegetation high in the air.

The next day he’s in the kitchen cooking breakfast, trying to return to some semblance of a routine, when Tony walks in.  He’s been trying to get Bucky alone, to spew whatever justifications he can over his actions in the lab. Bucky really doesn’t want to deal with him.

“I’m sorry,”  Tony says, leaning over the counter with a smile, looking not even a little bit apologetic.  Bucky’s considering making good on his promise to stab him. Tony should not be talking when he has a knife in hand.  “Steve ripped me a new one after you left.”

The knife wavers as he slices tomatoes, and he nearly takes his own thumb off.  Fuck. He cannot hear about Steve when he’s this sleep deprived.

“You’re not sorry at all,”  Bucky points the knife at him, and to his credit, Tony doesn’t flinch.  He just grins wider, and Bucky _hates_ him with more emotion than he has felt in a long time.  Hates how callous, and inconsiderate he is.

“Of course.  I know I’m right,”  Tony quips, “I’m getting tired of you two pining over each other.”

“For someone so smart, you sure don’t think things through, do you?”  Bucky hisses.

Tony rolls his eyes.  “C’mon, I’m the only sad Avenger the world needs.  We don’t need two more angsty superheroes added to the mix.”

Bucky’s eyes widen.  “Don’t call me that,”  he spits, stabbing the knife into the cutting board, violently splitting the wood down a seam.  “ _Don’t_ call me a hero.”

Tony snorts, looking at him with pursed lips.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Bucky’s hands shake violently, and he hides the tic by wiping them down with a towel.  He considers telling Tony that the nightmares are eating away at him, remembering that Tony was once a prisoner of war.  Perhaps he also suffers from nightmares? If so, how does he deal with them? Bucky looks into Tony’s concerned eyes, and can’t make himself do it.

Instead, he mutters under his breath,  “I’m not a fucking hero.”

Tony lets out an amused laugh.  Rolling his shoulders, he drums an excited beat on the counter with his palms.  “Bucky-boy, you’re already on the roster.” Bucky looks at him sharply. “Once those triggers are gone, you’re going to be out in the field with us, sniping baddies left and right.  I’ve already designed a rifle for you.” Tony mimes shooting a gun, and Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from the careless motion of it. “It’s an addiction, being a superhero. I know it, Steve knows it, hell even Romanoff will admit to it.”

He steals one of the cherry tomatoes Bucky was slicing, popping it into his mouth with a smirk.  He seems to be waiting for Bucky’s reaction, but all he can do is stare at Tony in disbelief. Tony wants him to fight.  To join the Avengers. He didn’t even think that was on the table.

Bucky feels a growing sense of dread rising in his chest.

“You’ll like it, I’ll show it to you whenever you like, just come up to the lab.  No ambushes this time.” He crosses a hand over his chest. “I promise.”

Bucky’s heart hammers away.  He’s sick to his stomach, but Tony is oblivious.  He just keeps talking about the gun he made for Bucky, like he thinks Bucky even wants a gun.  Is this how he’s expected to repay everything Tony’s done for him and Steve? Kill people, again?

He should have known, nothing is free.

Tony leaves, blind to everything.  Bucky tries to return to chopping ingredients, but the cutting board is useless as it is.  He forgets about the barley on the stove, and it burns. The ground beef is still frozen as it hits the pan.  It doesn’t brown, steaming instead, turning a disgusting grey colour. It smells like dirt, like the mud he crawled through under barbed wire in Wisconsin.

_You’ve never shot a gun before, Private Barnes?  This’ll be a treat, city slicker._

Bucky screams.  It’s a high-pitched, reedy thing coming from deep inside him, beyond his lungs, like it bursts from his stomach.  His voice creaks, and he grabs the largest piece of the cutting board, flinging it at the television, sending it crashing to the ground in a shower of sparks.  He explodes in a flurry of motion, flinging things, smashing the countertop to pieces, kicking in the cabinets.

When he’s done throwing the pot of burnt barley at the fridge, denting the stainless steel, Natasha shows up, widow’s bites already sparking.  Clearly expecting an enemy, and not him losing his mind, she stops right in the middle of the mess he’s created, eyes wide in shock.

Bucky collapses in on himself, strings snipped like a puppet.

“James,”  she starts, but he shoulders past her, uncaring as she calls after him.

 

**Walk Away**

Whatever damage control there is, Bucky doesn’t participate in it.  He ignores every person that comes knocking at his door. He swipes away Dr. Mehta’s request for a video call.  Instead, he sits on his closet floor, back against the drywall. With his arms wrapped around his legs, he remembers.

He walks into Colonel Phillip’s camp at Steve’s side, the Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder.  He hasn’t put it down in ten days, not even to piss.

Steve’s tall now.  He’s so built he could go against a tank, and the tank would lose.  He’s done it already, Bucky’s seen it. Steve jumped on top of the damn thing, and ripped the canon off with his bare hands.  He’s nothing like the boy Bucky remembers, except that he’s everything like him. He’s bigger, but he hasn’t changed a bit.

Bucky bugs off medical, but not before making sure the rest of his guys get looked after.  He’s only got a few scrapes and bruises, there’s no need to waste bandages on him.

He goes looking for something else.

Steve finds him at the edge of camp, sewing needle in hand, shirtless, and darning the holes in his henley.  He knows it’s cold outside, but he barely feels it. He doesn’t even have goosebumps. Bucky’s been running hot ever since Zola pumped that shit into him.

A large hand touches his shoulder, and before Bucky can even think, he’s got his gun whirled on the person behind him, finger right on the trigger.  Not hovering, touching. Fingers aren't supposed to touch triggers unless the action is followed through.

_Whoa, Buck, it’s me._

Bucky lowers the gun, squinting up at Steve.

_You trying to get yourself killed, sneaking up on me like that?_

_I’ve been looking everywhere for you._

Steve takes a seat beside him, and Bucky snorts, turning back to his darning.  The thread’s the wrong colour, but he can’t be picky. He needs to do his socks next, but they’re still hanging over a nearby branch, drying out.  He’s just glad he still has socks, nevermind that they’re practically falling apart. Some of the other boys are not as lucky.

_Well, you found me._

Steve still grins like an idiot.  Bucky’s happy to see that hasn’t changed.  Steve drapes an arm over his shoulder, like Bucky used to do to him, pulling him close into a hug.  He swallows down the lump in his throat, making sure to keep the pointy end of the needle away from Steve.

_I’m so happy I found you._

Bucky knows he isn’t talking about right now.  Steve’s hand is so warm against his neck. Bucky’s ear is pressed to his chest, and his heartbeat’s as steady as a metronome, all traces of the murmur gone.  Bucky smiles, pulling away from Steve, but not too far. He asks about the lipsticked dame who came to meet them, and Steve turns a brilliant shade of red. Bucky is stuck in between feeling pleased that someone other than him finally sees how amazing Steve is, and jealous.

Bucky makes a joke, beating down the rise of uglier emotions, and Steve smiles shyly, bumping their shoulders together.

_We’re on leave, Buck, shipping out to London come morning.  They’re holding the hearings there._

Bucky frowns at the needle in his hand.  His stitches are as straight as ever, nearly machine perfect, as his ma taught him.

_Hearings?_

_To decide who gets to go home on medical discharge.  Considering how I found you, they’re sure to approve it when you put in your request._

Bucky slowly processes exactly what that means, what Steve is implying.  He sets the henley aside, facing Steve fully.

_Are you getting discharged too?_

Steve shakes his head, smiling tentatively.

_No, course not.  Peggy’s going to help me recruit a special team to take down Hydra, and Howard’s practically bursting at the seams with weapon’s prototypes he wants me to try._

Bucky pokes Steve in the chest with a finger.

_I ain’t leaving, and I want in on that team.  I’m the best damned sniper you can get. You need me at your back._

Steve laughs nervously, scratching the back of his head.  His eyes dart Bucky’s way, then he chuckles some more. He thinks Bucky’s joking, but he’s not, he’s dead serious.  Something about him changed in Azzano, and he’s faster now, smarter. His eyesight has improved tenfold. He’d bet his mother’s wedding ring that he could snipe accurately from a long distance without a scope.  Not to mention he’s still got two working hands, and two working feet, and until he doesn’t, he’s going to be watching Steve’s six.

_Bucky, I’ve already drafted your request._

Bucky whirls on Steve, betrayed.  He swallows down the sudden anger that rushes forward.  How dare Steve assume that Bucky’d just turn tail and leave first chance he gets?  He ain’t a bleeding coward. He’s a patriot.

He clenches his jaw.

_I won’t leave you._

_Bucky…_

He shakes his head vehemently.

_No, Steve, I ain’t leaving you, and that’s final._

They’re going home together, or he’s not going home at all.

 

**The Perfect Crime**

He remembers the war, he remembers every second of it.  Zola turned him into a husk of a person, so he killed, he killed, and he killed some more, and he thought nothing of it.  The people he shot weren't people to him, and when he was the soldier, it was him who wasn’t the person.

He peels open the slit he cut into the carpeting, pulling out the file Natasha gave him weeks ago.  He flips through his background information, to the mission reports.

The first photograph is of a man in a uniform, the next is another man, the third is a pretty woman with blonde hair.  Bucky stares at her for a long moment. He remembers his hands around her neck, wringing the life from her. He turns the page.

Bucky sits with the file, and reads.  Some faces he recognizes, others he doesn't.  It’s an eclectic collection of people, linked only by the fact that Bucky killed them.  Some murders were politically motivated, others not. Some, he doesn’t even understand the benefits Hydra gained from their deaths.

He turns the second last page, and staring up at him is Howard Stark.

His face was on the Stark webpage.  He had his arm around his wife, and in front of them, a young Tony.  He’d been holding some sort of robot in his little arms, a dab of machine oil smeared over a pudgy cheek.  Bucky knew Howard in the war. He wasn’t close with him, Steve didn’t like him much, but he gave them everything they needed to do their missions.

He gave Steve his shield.

And Bucky smashed his face in.

Howard Stark was murdered on December 16, 1991, and then nine days later the Soviet Union was dissolved.  Money was transferred to a shell company in the new Russian Federation from several offshore accounts. Howard’s death was proof that the soldier could do what he was made to do, and the American branch gladly purchased him.  That is, until a technician recognized him as the half-Jewish best friend of Captain America.

Bucky sits for a while, stewing, but then he gets up, and leaves the file on the centre of the bed.  He walks out of his room in a numb state, mind running a mile a minute. It’s the first time he’s left in days, and his stomach rumbles in hunger, but he ignores it.  He needs to do this, it’s the only way.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., is Tony in his lab?”  Bucky asks quietly.

“Yes, Mr. Barnes, shall I tell him you’re coming up?”

He inhales sharply through his nose.  “No.”

“James.”  He’s grabbed by the shoulder, and turned around.  Natasha looks up at him, eyes narrowed in scrutiny.  She must see something she dislikes because she frowns deeply.

“Why didn’t you tell Tony?”  He asks, slipping out from under her grip, taking her by the arm instead.  If she told Tony, there’s no way he would have let Bucky stay in the tower.  There’s no way he would have built Bucky a gun. There’s no way he’d try to make him an Avenger.

The knowledge in that file is the solution to his problem.  She should have told Tony about what a monster Bucky really is.  He murdered Tony’s parents in cold blood, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to remember doing it.  It isn’t about Howard, and it isn’t about Tony. Bucky isn’t a hero, and he’d do anything to stay that way.

He doesn’t have to explain what he’s referring to, she knows.  He squeezes tightly, grinding her bones together, she doesn’t flinch.  “I have done what I have done,” she says cryptically. Then, a hint of fear in her eyes, something that she is quick to cover.  “What are _you_ going to do about it?”

“I’m going to tell him,”  Bucky says evenly.

Clearly that is not the answer she was expecting, because her eyes widen.  “Do you have a death wish?” She hisses. Bucky drops her arm, and walks away.  He calls the elevator, and when it comes, she moves in front of it, blocking him from entering.

Bucky shoulders past her, and she darts around him, knowing that he’s much stronger than her.  She can’t stop him when she doesn’t have the element of surprise, so she tries something else. She follows after him.

He presses the button for Tony’s lab, and she crosses her arms over her chest, pulling her phone from her jacket.  Her fingers dart quickly over the screen. Bucky just hopes she isn’t texting Steve. “You’re making a mistake, James,”  she warns, looking up from the screen with a glare.

Bucky laughs humorlessly, watching the changing digits, as the elevator goes up.  “This is the smartest thing I’ve done all week.”

She bares her teeth, and puts her phone away.  “Do you even realize what this will do to Steve?”

Bucky whips around, glaring, and there it is, the ugliest of emotions.  “Why do you care so much about Steve? Are you in love with him?” He demands, and Bucky is not proud of himself in that moment.

“What, are you a jealous child?”  She sneers. The doors open, and she grabs for him, but he shakes her off.  She follows, still talking, saying that he should not do this, that he cannot do this, that it would fuck everything up, but Bucky does not listen.  He looks around the empty lab, but he can’t see Tony anywhere. It’s dark outside, perhaps he left already. He stops in his tracks, and looks down at Natasha.

“His parents are dead because of me,”  he says simply, and that should be explanation enough, but not for her.

“There’s no reparation in this, James, trust me, only—”

“Whose parents?”  Tony asks, popping up from behind a workbench.  He’s got grease smeared over his nose, a robot perpetually at his feet, and he’s still the little boy that Bucky stole everything from.

 

**Mothers**

“I killed your father,”  Bucky says, and Natasha hisses.  Turning away, she fists a hand in her hair.  Bucky can’t see the expression on her face, but he knows it’s frustration.

“What?”  Tony frowns, pulling the goggles off his head in a rush, dropping them to the table.  His hair sticks up in all directions, and his mouth twists unhappily. “Is this a joke, because it's very much not funny.  My parents died in an accident.”

Bucky doesn’t bother sugarcoating it.  “I burst the front wheel on their car, and caused them to crash.  I cracked Howard’s skull with my fist.”

Tony stares at him for several second, then his eyes dart down to the arm.  He helped clean it of oxidation, he made sure its parts were running smoothly.  He did that all for the arm that killed his parents. His face runs through a range of emotions: disbelief, shock, horror.  He swallows, and the sound of his throat working is loud in the otherwise silent lab. “My mom?” He asks quietly.

“Collateral damage.”

_I don’t know what I’d do if someone hurt you or your sisters, Jimmy.  But, I wouldn’t be nice ‘bout it._

Tony closes his eyes, and his brow furrows deeply.  His body stiffens with tension, fingers vibrating dangerously against the workbench.  “Collateral…” He repeats, anger leaking into his voice. His entire body is shaking now, and Bucky waits to see what he will do next.  Natasha looks between them, and shifts until her centre of gravity is balanced.

Tony glares at him in righteous fury.  He lifts his hand to his watch. Before he can touch it, Natasha darts forward, grabs his wrist, and smashes the watch against the workbench.  Tony cries out in pain, but Natasha just slams it down again, smashing it to pieces. His other hand spreads open, but Natasha grabs it, closing his fist.  She pushes a knee against Tony’s back, and wrestles his arms behind him. An elbow at his neck, and Tony’s face is pressed up against cold metal.

Bucky stands there, paralyzed like a statue.

Even though it’s Natasha he’s grappling with, Tony still manages to turn his head and glare at Bucky with burning eyes.

“J.A.R—”  Tony starts, but is quickly cut off when Natasha shoves a nearby oil rag in his mouth.

Natasha lifts her head, and glowers at Bucky.  Her arms are shaking with strain, holding down Tony the way she is.  She won’t be able to keep it up forever. “What the hell are you standing there for?”  Her eyes flash dangerously, and she points her chin sharply to the other end of the lab.  “Make like a bird, and fly the fuck out of here!”

Emotionless, like the machine it is, J.A.R.V.I.S. takes that moment to say,  “I see you are in distress, sir, the suit is on the way.”

“The sketchbook in my room,”  Bucky says in a rush, “Give it back to Steve.”

“Go, go, go!”  Natasha screams, and he goes.

He doesn’t bother with the elevator.  He finally listens to Natasha. He runs for the far side of the lab.  Pushing through the glass doors that open onto the helipad, he stumbles through into the dark night, just as the elevator dings.  He doesn’t have time to think it over, all he knows is that he trusts Natasha. He runs, and runs, and then with arms and legs kicking, he jumps.

He’s in free fall, ass over heels, tumbling out of the sky.  The wind rushes past his face, eyes watering, and drying as he accelerates.  He closes his eyes, and remembers falling from a train.

His hands grip tight to ice cold metal, but it doesn’t matter, the sockets are breaking, piece by piece.  Steve’s still reaching for him. He’s got tears in his eyes, and he looks so damned terrified. Like the scared little boy he never was.  The train’s vibrations are agony in all his broken bones. Bucky’s holding on, but the metal’s got other ideas. It shrieks, and Steve stares at him like he’s already dead.  It gives, and he’s falling, and he’s screaming, but he can’t look away from Steve’s face. His eyesight is better than it ever was before. Steve’s curled up on himself, clutching desperately to the train.  His eyes are squeezed shut because he can’t bear to watch Bucky die.

His head snaps back with force as he’s grabbed by the back of his shirt and yanked out of the sky.  Bucky blinks stars out of his vision. Sam holds him tight. He’s wearing only sweatpants, a tee, and his wings.  He doesn’t even have shoes on. Natasha must have woken him from his sleep.

“If I had a dime for every time I have to save some white boy from his own stupidity—”  Bucky doesn’t hear the rest, the wind roars in his ears, and Sam’s wings whir, taking them higher.

 

**Sanctuaries**

Father Leland waits outside the rectory wrapped in a robe, black hair combed perfectly.  When Sam sets them down in the courtyard, he smiles kindly, lobbing a pair of socks, and running shoes Sam’s way.

Sam lets go of Bucky to catch them.  “Thanks, my toes feel like they’re gonna fall off.”  Bucky stumbles once he gets his feet under him. It feels like he’s been dangling for hours from Sam’s grip, but the distance from the tower to St. Anthony’s is in reality only a few minutes.

“You must be Bucky,”  Father Leland says. He holds open the door to the rectory, gesturing for them to come inside.  “I’ve got cocoa bubbling away on the stove, it’ll warm you right up.”

It’s cosy inside.  With light coloured hardwood floors, and a coat of cream paint on the walls, it looks like a home.

Father Leland gestures to the couch, and Bucky takes a seat.  “Father Roald’s at a retreat in Sussex, so it’s just us, and the cocoa that hopefully isn’t burning right now.”  He turns a corner, leaving Bucky and Sam alone, but Sam doesn’t move from the doorway. He’s looking down at his phone.

“I have to go,”  Sam says, throwing a thumb over his shoulder.

“What’s happening,”  Bucky asks nervously, rubbing at his knees,  “Is Natasha okay?” Guilt twists his stomach.  He didn’t mean to get her into trouble, but then again he didn’t mean for a lot of things to happen.

“She’s going to be fine, but I really gotta go,”  he tells Bucky, “Stay here, you can’t go back right now, least not until things settle.

“I don’t want to go back to the tower,”  Bucky says quietly, “Ever.”

A wrinkle forms between Sam’s brows, like he’s thinking hard and deep over things.  “Okay,” he says slowly, “We can work with that. One of us will come get you in a bit, and take you somewhere else, just sit tight.”  Sam turns. With a hand on the doorknob, he calls over his shoulder. “See you later, Father.”

Father Leland yells out an affirmative from somewhere deeper in the rectory, and Sam leaves, but not without sending one more look of concern Bucky’s way.

“Bucky,”  Father Leland says,  “Could you come to the kitchen?  It’s just around the corner.”

He finds Father Leland dropping marshmallows into two mugs filled right to the brim with cocoa.  There’s a can of whipped cream on the table, beside a tin of cookies. Father Leland picks it up with a raised brow.  Bucky nods, and gets a heaping dollop of whipped cream over the marshmallows. Two chairs get pulled out, and they sit in silence at the table, drinking their cocoa.  It’s steaming hot, and it burns his tongue. Bucky loves it.

“I’ve always said there’s nothing better for melancholy than a mug of hot cocoa.”  Father Leland smiles, his eyes twinkling. His robe has little cartoon crosses and shooting stars on it.  He catches Bucky looking, and says, “You like it? One of my parishioners bought it for my birthday.” His eyes go sad.  “She’s one of the missing.”

“Sorry.”  Bucky ducks his head, shy.  “Thanks, though,” he mutters into the drink,  “For taking me in.”

Father Leland traces a pinky along the rim of his mug.  “Sam mentioned that you attended mass a while back,” he says thoughtfully,  “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”

“There’s no reason you would,”  Bucky says, shrugging, “I didn’t take communion.”

“Are you of the faith?”  He asks gently.

“I was,”  Bucky says with a twist of his lips.

“Baptism doesn't expire, Bucky.”  Father Leland reclines in his seat, the chair creaking.

“It’s been years,”  he says, inhaling the delicious steam rising from the mug,  “Didn’t want to take communion because I wasn’t confessed.”

Father Leland hums, but after a moment he suggests,  “How about this, after we’ve finished our cocoa, and you’ve eaten a biscuit or two, we could go to the church?”

Bucky sets his mug down, surprised.  “You'll let me take confession?” Bucky asks, and his voice is strained, right on the verge of cracking.

Father Leland looks at him in concern.  “If that’s what you really want, I’d be happy to.  No pressure”

Bucky closes his eyes, and smiles ever so faintly.  “I’d like that.”

Bucky washes the cups, while Father Leland changes into his cassock, and together they leave for the church.

This time he remembers to cross himself as he enters.  It’s different at night, quieter. Though, this is Manhattan, and sound still comes from the streets, faint as it is.  It’s peaceful, no harsh daylight streaming in through the stained glass. A rack of glowing red votive candles rests along the far wall, flickering in the dim light produced by the fixtures hanging above the aisles.

The confessional booths are in the same place.  Father Leland touches Bucky’s shoulder, and bypasses them, sitting down in one of the pews.  “I hope you don’t mind,” he says.

“No, I think I prefer this,”  Bucky says. He pulls down the kneeler, prostrating himself before his God.  Bending his head over his hands, he says the words he remembers from long ago,  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been more than seventy years since my last confession.”

Father Leland doesn’t make any indication of surprise.  Steve probably took confession with him. Bucky wonders if Steve talked about him.  If he begged God for forgiveness for letting Bucky fall, even though it was not his fault.

“I’ve done a lot of bad things,”  Bucky says, pressing his knuckles to his forehead until it hurts,  “I killed people. I regret it, and I never want to do it again, but it doesn’t erase the fact that it happened.”

“No, it doesn’t,”  Father Leland says heavily, and Bucky braces himself for the condemnation.  For everything he has feared. But, Father Leland says nothing of hellfire, nor of satan’s hold over his soul.  “Am I right in thinking there are other factors?”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut in something akin to relief.  “I did not have a choice for most of it. People say that I was a prisoner of war.”  Bucky swallows. He isn’t making excuses, he is telling the truth. “But in the beginning, I enlisted in the army, and I made a decision.”

Father Leland goes quiet, as he says,  “In matters of war, where it is kill or be killed.  Combat is not a sin, so long as gratification is not taken in it.  You said you enlisted, but did you enlist in the hopes of deriving pleasure from killing people?”

“No,”  Bucky says firmly,  “I did it for my country, and...”  He pauses, voice growing thick. “I wanted Steve to be proud of me.  Does that count as taking pleasure from murder? When killing people was the only way I could express that I—”  He cuts himself off, strangled with emotion.

“It weighs heavily on your conscience, that is plain to see,”  Father Leland observes, “What about when you did not have a choice?  Do you regret those deaths?”

“I do,”  Bucky says, and it comes out on the tail end of a sob,  “I killed a man I knew, and his wife, I didn’t know it at the time.  I was not myself when I did it, but I found out recently.” He sniffs.  “I told his son.” He looks at Father Leland out of the corner of his eye.  “That’s why I’m here.”

“Did you tell him in order to make amends?”

Bucky sniffles.  He shakes his head.  “It was selfish. I wanted him to get angry at me.  I wanted him to confront me, and hate me. I didn’t deserve his friendship, I didn’t deserve him thinking well of me.  He deserves to know that I ruined his life.”

“You have been living in a warzone for seventy years, Bucky,”  Father Leland says firmly, “Your autonomy was stolen from you.  You are not guilty of the sins ordered by your captors.”

Bucky inhales sharply.  “What about my other sins?”

“Such as?”  Father Leland asks carefully,  “What else is weighing you down?”

“I covet a man,”  he says in a rush,  “Steve,” he clarifies quietly, and at that Father Leland makes a surprised sound,  “I love him.”

“And you consider that a sin.”  Father Leland says softly.

Bucky turns around with a frown on his face.  “Isn’t it?”

Father Leland sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.  He looks so tired. “No matter what many of my colleagues would say, and what the church itself believes.  Love can never be a sin, especially not when it is consensual for all parties involved.”

There’s a sharpness in his throat, and it feels like an age before the tears finally start flowing.  Father Leland’s all a blur, and Bucky swipes at his eyes.

He says his contrition, and Father Leland smiles kindly through it.  When he is finished, Father Leland says, “For your penance say a rosary for the lives you have taken, and then Bucky, say one for yourself.

He nods.  “Thank you, Father.”

Father Leland imparts on him absolution, and Bucky crosses himself.  He pats Bucky on the shoulder, and pulls the tab from his collar with a single finger.  “I’m going to bed. I’ll make the couch up if you’re to stay the night.” Bucky thanks him again, and Father Leland leaves him to his penance.

He’s halfway through the Lord’s Prayer when he feels a slight breeze against his ankles.  He pauses, words hanging from his lips, heart thumping in his chest. The sound of the church doors closing is barely perceptible.  It could be just another late night visitor, but something tells him that it isn’t. It’s the fall of boots on tile, the soles worn thin; the crinkle of a leather jacket; a hand running through soft hair, perpetually combing it away from gentle blue eyes.

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut as Steve sits on the pew behind him.  His presence is a weight along his back. He wants to turn around, but he has a penance to finish, and he has a promise he still does not want to break.

“Amen,”  he whispers hoarsely, then begins a Hail Mary.  His hands quiver as he counts a decade along his fingers.

Minutes later, he finishes his penance, but still he sits.  Wood creaks, and Bucky breathes shakily through his nose. Steve gets up, and moves beside him.  Bucky closes his eyes, the heat from Steve’s body causing him to shiver. Steve sighs. It’s just a small puff of breath, but it’s proof of life.

The memory comes, and it turns Bucky inside out.

There’s an abandoned church, somewhere in Northern Italy.  Its roof is bombed to all hell, but it’s still structurally sound.  The pews are covered in a fine layer of dust and powder snow, sunlight streams in glaring shafts through the holes.  Birds hibernate in the rafters. Rubble lies spilled out on the dirt floor, mice sheltering from the cold winter in the gaps and crevices.  Beyond the church lies a field of pure white snow, multitudes of grasses sleeping beneath, slowly growing back after the devastation. Preparing for spring.

That’s when Bucky realizes he hadn’t remembered all of the war, before.  This memory is new. There’s no gunfire, no mud, no blood, but he’s in his uniform, blue bomber jacket overtop.  Steve’s sitting beside him, nearly the same as they're doing now. Except his hands are pressed over Bucky’s, their fingers woven together as they—

“You kissed me,”  Bucky gasps in shock.  Steve startles beside him, but Bucky doesn't give him a chance to speak.  “In Italy, in that church out in the countryside. You _kissed_ me.”

He turns his head, and there he is, Steve.  He’s looking at Bucky so sweetly confused, his brows pulled together.  The last time he saw Steve in person, close like this, Bucky sat beside his hospital bed.  He’d been all sunken-in then, the drugs Hydra was pumping into him draining all his life. There are still traces of those months he spent in a coma in the sharpness of his cheekbones, the limpness of his hair.  He hasn’t looked this tired since he was five foot nothing, a hundred pounds soaking wet.

Steve stares back, eyes darting all over Bucky’s face in turn.  God, but there are so many things about him that will never change.  That damn crooked nose for one. They should have gone to Sarah after it got broke, but Steve didn’t want to worry her, so Bucky had his ma set it.  Steve had screamed bloody murder when she’d done it, and the tip listed ever so slightly to the left since.

Pulling out the sketchbook Bucky told Natasha to return, Steve flips through the pages.  He catches a glimpse of dark pencil sketches, before looking away. Steve holds the sketchbook out, and Bucky sees the note he wrote that day in the hospital room.  “Why?” He asks, and his voice is exactly as Bucky remembers.

“I…”  Bucky stammers, shaking his head, his mind running too fast to process all the emotions he’s feeling.  “You kissed me,” he says instead, voice going shrill.

“Yes.”  Steve quirks a brow, lips pursing.  “I know. I was there,” he says, and he’s irritated now.  It’s like music to Bucky’s ears. Steve’s long fingers tap the page, as he says,  “I want to know why you wrote me this apology.”

Bucky swallows, casting his gaze to the side.  He ignores Steve’s non-question, instead saying,  “I didn’t remember the church, until just now.”

“Oh,”  Steve says simply.  He blinks once, and then a few more times.  He closes the sketchbook, but keeps his finger in place, ready to bring it up again.  “Did you want to talk about it? Do you regret it?”

“Regret it?”  Bucky repeats, incredulous.  “Even though I don’t remember how it happened, the last thing I do is regret it.”  He bites the inside of his cheek. “What about Peggy?”

Steve works his jaw.  “I love her too, I do, but when you said what you said in that church,”  Steve says softly, “When you told me you loved me,” He chuckles, and his lips quirk for one second, full of such beautiful joy,  “The last person on my mind was Peggy.”

“I’ve always been telling you that I love you,”  Bucky insists.

“I knew it was different that time, the way you looked at me…”

“I’ve always been looking at you like that, Stevie,”  Bucky murmurs, and it’s the confession he doesn’t remember giving.

Steve’s expression goes pained, as his voice falls to nothing more than a whisper.  “And then three days later you fell from the train.”

“I’m sorry,”  Bucky apologizes.

Steve meets his eyes, determination glowing like fire.  He tucks the sketchbook back in his jacket, and brings his fingers up to Bucky’s cheek.  “There you go again, apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.” Steve’s hand shakes ever so slightly.  It could be from emotion, but when he pulls back, and hides his hand in his pocket, Bucky knows something is wrong.

“Steve,”  Bucky says.

Steve shakes his head, he rests his hand on Bucky’s knee, and the contact sets him ablaze.  “C’mon, do you have a place you can stay?”

“Tony?”  Bucky asks carefully.

“He’s calmed down, he won’t come looking for you.”

Bucky licks his lips nervously, and makes a decision.  “I know people I can stay with.” He supposes the likelihood of Gloria kicking him to the curb is about fifty-fifty.  Marcel’s more likely to forgive him.

“Alright, up you go.”  Steve stands. Crossing himself at the end of the pew, he waits for Bucky to do the same.  “I brought your earplugs,” he says, handing them over, “Your bag’s still at the tower, I can bring it some other day.”

“Steve,”  Bucky starts, putting the plugs into his ears, but he doesn’t turn them on,  “This doesn’t change anything.” Steve frowns, and his lips twist unhappily.  “It’s just until the trigger words—”

“I understand,”  Steve says shortly,  “Let’s go, my bike’s just outside.”

Steve hands him a helmet, and when Bucky protests, he pushes it to his chest.  The hypocrite slings his leg over the motorcycle, helmetless. Bucky grumbles as he sits behind Steve, and pulls it on.  Steve’s old army motorcycle had much more room for Bucky. On this one, he has to press up all along Steve’s back, or risk falling off.

He gives Steve directions to the Bell’s, and then they’re off.

Manhattan at night is just as full of traffic as Manhattan during the day.  People walk the streets, going about their own business, laughing with friends, carrying bags of food, walking excited pets.  Neon signs flash in bodega windows. The sharp scent of a city after it rains lingers in the air. Manhattan is beautiful, in its own dirty way, but Bucky will not miss it.  The solidity of Steve’s waist beneath his hands keeps him anchored through it all. He’s going home, but Steve isn’t coming with him.

It takes some time, but eventually they make it down to the tip of the island, to the Battery.  Bucky gets the start of his life as Steve takes them underground, into a tunnel. The walls are solid concrete, and it’s just like being inside the MRI machine.  They must be under the East River, where it meets the Hudson. If Bucky concentrates hard enough, he might even be able to hear the roar of tonnes of water and dirt pressing down on them.

Bucky rests his helmeted head against Steve’s back, tightening his arms around his waist.  He never wants to let go. So he doesn’t, the entire drive home to Brooklyn.

[ Tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/173081647887/art-for-chapter-6-of-jury-duty-they-caught-him)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I know what you're thinking, "omg, elis, this was only supposed to have one more chapter!!??" and to that I say you are completely right. I usually don't like posting chapters over 5k, and I found a good place to leave it off that would have max feels without much sad, especially after the last chapter. So here it is. Hopefully this heals hearts, and makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
> 
> But for real, would you believe me if I said this was originally only supposed to be 20k long?

**The River, Pt. ii**

In his memories the roaring river lies a hundred feet below.  The moonlight cannot reach the ice floes, nor the biting cold beneath.

He loses his arm when he falls into it.  It’s abyssal, deep enough to break his fall so he doesn’t splatter like an egg on pavement, but the ice is plentiful, edges jagged.  A horror for later.

Now, it’s an empty, dark precipice, and Bucky stands on the edge.  His gun hangs from his shoulder, heavy like a millstone.

He’s allowed a fire to keep him warm.  The ledge is hidden from everything but the rare bird or two.  Tomorrow they will zipline down to the train, another one of Falsworth’s mad ideas.  The rest of the boys are camped out in the woods, under the cover of trees. It’s his turn on watch, but he’s not alone.

A hand runs along his side, wrapping around his waist, pulling him away from the edge.  Bucky goes willingly, leans against the chest that holds him steady. Steve presses his face to his neck, trails cold kisses up his neck, then playfully licks behind his ear.  Bucky shivers, and not from the cold.

_Would you make love to me if I asked?_

Steve’s breath is a hot exhale.  He playfully rubs his cold nose behind Bucky's ear.  Bucky turns in Steve’s arms, placing his hands on slim hips, that silver star shining like a beacon.

_I have plans for you, Stevie._

He wants to wrap himself around Steve, and never let him go.  He settles for the next best thing. He kisses him. Both their lips are chilled, but they warm quickly in the heat shared between them.

_Unfortunately, most of those plans require a bed.  I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer._

Bucky pauses.  Smirks.

_My precious muffin._

Steve sputters, shoulders shaking in laughter.

_By God, Bucky, please don’t ever call me that again._

Bucky flutters his lashes, pouting dramatically.

_I’m dizzy for you, darling, can’t help it._

Steve smirks, and abruptly slaps him across the ass.  Bucky yelps, all cockiness evaporating in an instant. He grabs for Steve, but he dances out of reach, grinning like the devil himself.

_Come back here you punk!_

Bucky chases after him, stopping to scoop a handful of snow.  His training comes in handy, when it lands square in the middle of Steve’s face.  Bucky breaks down into a fit of laughter, until Steve shoves a chunk of ice down the back of his jacket.

Their watch devolves into the two of them fooling like children, until a sleepy eyed Falsworth stumbles out of the woods grumbling that Steve’s giggling alone could wake the entirety of Austria.  The poor man gets a faceful of snow for his trouble.

 

**A Homecoming, Pt. ii**

Brighton Beach is the same as ever.  It’s like he never left.

They’re parked outside the Bell’s apartment.  It’s long past midnight, but there’s a light on in their living room window.  Such are the trials and tribulations of caring for a newborn. That’s one thing he remembers about his youngest sister, Rachel.  She was very colicky, especially late at night.

Bucky climbs off the bike, surprised when Steve takes his hand.  He holds only the tips of his fingers, as though he's scared of rejection.

“Sit with me for a bit?”  Steve asks, and God forbid, Bucky still finds it difficult to say no to him.

They sit side by side on the steps leading up to the building.  It’s a chill night, but it doesn't bother him. The wind blows Steve's hair to the side, and he combs it back in such a familiar way.  Bucky can’t help but stare, drinking him in. He looks the same as he did during the war, only a few years older, but wearier. His hair is cut shorter, but his jawline is achingly familiar.  There really remains no trace of what Bucky did to him. No scars, nothing but perfect smooth skin.

Steve turns, their eyes meeting, and Bucky realizes he’s been staring for an exceedingly long amount of time.

“I like your hair,”  Steve says, and Bucky snorts.  Steve rolls his eyes. “C’mon Buck, we both know you’d look good in anything.”

“You should’ve seen the moustache,”  Bucky says wryly.

“I have.”  Bucky looks at him in surprise.  “You don’t remember,” Steve says with a sad smile,  “When you were fifteen you started growing facial hair.”  Steve gestures over his upper lip. “This wispy, awful stuff.  Looked like cat whiskers if you ask me. Your da nearly came to blows with you over it.”

The memory returns as if emerging from a fog.  “He called me a toad,” Bucky says wondrously. There’s something about Steve that helps him remember his past, whether is is because he features in most of his memories, or because Steve is all he has left from those times.  Being near him feels exactly like being Bucky again.

Steve smirks.  “That he did. You only shaved it after your teacher called you a tramp.”

“She didn’t have to say it in front of you,”  Bucky groans as the scene unfolds in his memories with perfect clarity.

Steve waiting for him, and witnessing Miss Sisel cornering him on the front steps of the school.  Bucky kicking his toe in the dirt like a schmuck while she lectured him on personal grooming. Steve laughing like a dying whale the entire walk back to their neighbourhood, and Bucky deciding right then and there that he would shave as soon as he got home.

“I didn’t tease you about it.”  Bucky lifts both of his brows in disbelief, and Steve corrects.  “That much.”

Bucky scoffs.  “You were incorrigible.”

Steve leans back, stretching his long legs in front of him.  “Still am, bud.” His jaw tightens. “You’d know if you spent time with me this century.”  Steve’s expression goes pained. “I don't mean to sound ungrateful—”

“You did,”  Bucky says, but it isn't accusatory.  Steve’s telling the truth, and Bucky deserves his ire.  He deserves so much worse.

He looks away from Steve.  A rustling in the dead grasses by the chain link fence draws his attention.  Expecting a rat, he’s pleasantly surprised when Bear saunters out like a feline on a mission.  He stops a few feet away from Bucky, and lets out the loudest, grumpiest miaow. Bucky for one is thankful for the distraction.

“Who’s this?”  Steve asks, and his voice goes all melty, syrupy sweet, it slides down Bucky’s chest, pooling somewhere lower.

“A cat,”  Bucky says stupidly, like it isn't obvious.  He coughs to clear his throat. “I used to feed him.”  He wriggles his fingers at Bear, but he still doesn’t come any closer, careful as ever.  Trevor must have taken over feeding him after he left.

“Does he have a name?”

“Bear.  Trevor—my friends’ kid—calls him Bear.”  Bucky smiles. “But he doesn’t belong to anyone.  You could say that he’s his own cat. No master, and all the free will in the world.”

Steve swallows, and starts quietly,  “Buck, I…”

“Bear,”  Bucky says to the cat.  Bear’s tail wavers in the air.  “This is Steve.” He pauses, then adds.  “He’s my best friend.”

“Hi, Bear,”  Steve says, quietly.

Bear miaows again, and seems to realize that neither Bucky or Steve have any milk, nor do they plan on acquiring some.  His tail sways, and he takes off. Back through a hole in the fence, off to hunt down a tasty pigeon.

“Would you tell me about them?”  Steve asks after some time. “Your friends?”

Bucky looks at Steve in surprise.  “Gloria and Marcel,” he says, “They're good people.  They have a new baby, Judith, and Trevor is their son. He's an artist, like you.”

“Oh?”  Steve says,  “I'd like to see his work sometime.”  He’s sincere about it too, it’s one of the things Bucky loves about Steve, that beautiful, honest sincerity.

“Gloria pins all his newer masterpieces on their fridge.  Place of honour, right next to the magnets.”

Steve smiles, genuine and bright.  “Better than any gallery.”

Bucky looks down at his hands, saying,  “I'd like to see your drawings, if you’d let me.”

He feels Steve shift beside him.  “You’re the same as ever, Bucky, still won't look at my art without my express permission.”  Bucky watches Steve fiddle with his coat zipper, he’s nervous. “I haven't drawn anything lately.  I tried when I first got out of the ice, but…” Steve shrugs.

“But?”

Steve opens and closes his hand, turning it this way and that, fidgeting.  Bucky’s tempted to reach over, to hold him down, stop him from being so skittish.  Steve used to tell him everything. Bucky was the one hiding his feelings away, but maybe he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.  “Between missions, and doing press for the Avengers, I haven't had time.”

Steve could find time to draw in the middle of a battlefield.  If he hasn't been drawing it means he hasn't been in the mood. Not that he doesn't have time.

It’s a rotting fruit basket, a desk covered in dull pencils, and Bucky doesn’t know how to help Steve.  He doesn’t know if he can.

Steve insists on walking him up to the Bell’s apartment.  If Gloria decides to slam the door on his face, he’ll have a front row seat to Bucky’s humiliation.  It takes a long time for him to gather together his courage, but Steve patiently waits. He knocks.

The door opens a few moments later to Marcel; sleepy-eyed gaze clearing to a smile that only grows wider the longer he looks at Bucky, and seems to register that he’s actually here.

“Jimmy,”  he says happily,  “You’re back.”

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.  “Bucky. My name is Bucky.”

“Yeah,”  Marcel says softly,  “Gloria said something about that.”  Marcel’s gaze slips from Bucky to Steve, and his eyes go wide, mouth falling open ever so slightly.  “And you’re…. Bucky’s friend?”

“Yes,”  Steve says, holding his hand out to shake.  Marcel takes Steve’s hand, holding on for a few seconds longer than necessary.  The longer he keeps staring at Steve, the more flustered Marcel seems to get.

“You’re very…  do you model… uh, sorry, what was your name?”

Steve looks like he’s trying not to laugh.  “Steve.”

“I feel like I’ve seen your face before.”  Marcel snaps his fingers. “You do ads, don’t you?”

Steve grins.  “Not ads no, but PSAs were my thing for a while.”

“Could we come in?”  Bucky asks, amused. Marcel smiles sheepishly, and gestures them in.  He makes them take off their shoes at the front door, and Bucky snorts when Marcel sneaks a peek at Steve’s ass.

The living room looks like a raging storm named Trevor blew through it.  Toys and crayons lay scattered everywhere, and Marcel expertly navigates through, leading them over to the couch.  Bucky’s not so lucky, he steps on a brightly coloured piece of plastic and swears loudly.

“Yikes, sorry.”  Marcel apologizes, as Bucky pries the plastic from his foot.  “Trevor’s been restless with Judie crying every few hours. I feel bad about it, but all this Lego is starting to show up in unexpected places, and I’m not much into that.”

“Ma used to rub brandy on Becca’s gums.”  He nods in understanding. At the horrified look on Marcel’s face, Bucky continues,  “But I guess they don’t do that anymore.”

“You’d be surprised, the things I read on the internet.”  Bucky turns around, and finds a sleep-rumbled Gloria, tugging on the ends of her frayed sleep shirt.  She eyes Steve up and down in appreciation, and Bucky nearly bursts out laughing. Like husband, like wife.  Nice to know that he isn’t the only one susceptible to Steve’s charm.

“Glo, this is _Steve_ ,”  Marcel says in a near whisper, then seems to remember Bucky’s still here.  ”Oh, and Bucky’s back.”

“If I knew we were going to have company, I would’ve put my hair down.”  Gloria pats at the headscarf wrapping her curls up tight. “You must be the ‘family stuff,’”  she says to Steve.

“We’re childhood friends,”  Steve says, meeting Bucky's eyes, a smile shared between them.

“Sweet,”  she says, looking at them both, then to Steve,  “He’s a good one, don’t let him go.” Warmth builds in Bucky’s chest at her words.

“I’ll try my darndest, ma’am.”  Steve’s fingers skim over the back of his hand, just the faintest of pressure before it’s gone again.  “He’ll have me, so long as he wants me.”

A door clicks down the hall, and a yawning Trevor appears in the doorway, a Falcon themed blanket hanging from his shoulders.  If only Sam was here to see it.

He scrubs at his eyes, mumbling,  “Why’s Captain America in our living room?”  He finally seems to register Bucky because his mouth falls all the way open and he exclaims,  “Jimmy!” He runs right up to Bucky, and latches around his thigh, jumping up and down in excitement,  “You’re back! And your moustache is gone!”

“Oh my God, Captain America!”  Marcel yells, and that’s when the last member of the Bell family decides to join the party with a deafening wail.  Marcel winces. “Oh no.”

“Want some help with her?”  Steve offers, “I’m not nearly as sleep deprived as you are.”

With relief in his eyes, Marcel says,  “You’re a gift, Captain.”

A startled laugh leaves Steve’s lips.  “Really, Steve is fine.”

Marcel and Steve leave, all the while an incredulous Gloria stares at Bucky like she’s seeing him for the first time.  “Childhood friends. _Bucky_ .  Holy _fuck_.”  She blinks, looking down at Trevor in horror, and that’s the straw that broke the camel's back.  Bucky laughs like a maniac, swinging Trevor up into his arms.

“You don’t know how happy I am to see you all again,”  he says, as Trevor smooshes Bucky’s cheeks together.

Some time later Steve returns with a wriggling Judith.  Marcel is off tucking Trevor back in bed, and Bucky sits on the couch beside Gloria.  A now empty mug of coffee in front of him, despite it being the middle of the night.

It’s an amusing sight, to say the least, a newborn carried in Steve’s massive arms.  She looks so small in comparison, and when Gloria takes her, handing her over to Bucky, she looks even smaller up close.  He supports her head expertly, covered in wispy strands of hair. Bucky remembers his ma showing him how best to hold Rachel, so he wouldn't hurt her.  “She’s beautiful,” he tells Gloria, then looks to Steve, who gifts him a sweet smile.

“Yeah,”  she says, ever the proud mother,  “She’s a stinky one, though, aren’t you, Judie Jude?”  She teases the baby, who kicks her arms and legs, giggling openly, letting Bucky get a good whiff of her ripe baby breath.

Gloria takes Judith back, and settles on the couch with her, pulling down the collar of her shirt.  Politely, Steve and Bucky turn to the window. Distantly, the bay looks like a massive swath of inky blackness.

Oftentimes Bucky was left in charge of Rachel, while his ma worked.  Only ten years old, and he carried her in a sling while he played with Steve.  Running around and exploring, returning to the shop every few hours for his ma to feed her.  Even responsibility over another person’s life couldn't stop him from enjoying his childhood.  Rachel seemed to like it all the same, giggling happily and grabbing at his chin while tucked away in her sling.

“I think Rachel was smaller,”  Steve says shyly, “Quietest baby I’d ever met.”

“You were lucky you didn’t know Becca when she younger, a screamer, that one.”

“Bucky,”  Steve says seriously,  “We both know she never lost her hardy set of lungs.  She might’ve blown out my eardrums if they weren’t already failing by the time you Barneses showed up.”  Bucky nudges Steve with his shoulder. “I miss them,” Steve says quietly, “They were my family just as much as they were yours.”

“Yeah, they loved you,”  Bucky says, and he know it to be true.  He chews his bottom lip, then asks softly,  “Do you think ma would hate me?”

Steve makes a surprised noise, but Bucky stares out into the night, loathe to look at him, to see the pity on his face.

“Bucky, she loved you,”  Steve says in a strangled whisper.

“You can hate someone and love them at the same time,”  he says sadly.

“She could never hate you,”  Steve says firmly, “She’d be proud of you.  Just like I am.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat.  Steve’s warmth surrounds him like a blanket, though they’re scarcely touching.

“Long before I remembered anything I else, I remembered what she taught me,”  Bucky says, “I didn’t know my own name, but I could stitch a seam perfectly. I could repair a machine belt.  I could tailor a jacket like it was nothing, and it was all her. She brought me back, more than anything else.”

Steve’s quiet for a moment, but then he says,  “She was going to leave the shop to you, she told me after you enlisted.”

“Oh,”  Bucky says quietly,  “Do you know...?” He trails off, but Steve understands what he’s asking.  He’s always been good at reading Bucky.

“It was in your official biography.”  And Bucky isn’t touching _that_ with a ten foot pole.  “Your ma ran the shop for more than two decades after the war ended, but she sold the business when she couldn’t work anymore.  Arthritis,” Steve says in explanation. “They interviewed Becca, and she said Winnie always hoped you’d come back.” Steve touches his chin, turns his head so Bucky has to look at him, has to look at the glorious expression on his face.  “And you have, Bucky, you’ve returned. It’s taken you seventy years, but you’re here.”

Bucky scoffs, and tries to pull away, but Steve doesn’t let him go.  “I’m no prodigal son.”

“No,”  Steve says, and his thumb feels like a brand,  “You’re Bucky.”

 

**You, Pt. ii**

The first time Bucky laid his eyes on Steve, he’d been a scrawny thing with more guts than sense.  Six years old and already a feisty little bastard. He was the terror of the neighbourhood, and his reputation preceded him.

Bucky and his family moved from Manhattan into the Brooklyn boroughs because his ma wanted to open her own shop.  There was no place for her in Manhattan, not with a competition of male, better established tailors in surplus.

He first heard about Steve from his neighbour.  His da and uncle moved the furniture, and he sat at her kitchen table while she complained up and down about a terrible Catholic boy who bloodied her grandson’s nose.  Bucky was surprised, he believed all Catholics were too afraid of eternal damnation to risk doing anything bad. Even his da tried his best to be good, and he’d already done the unforgivable in his family’s eyes.

George Barnes’ family disowned him for marrying a Jewish woman.  Though they claimed it was for being too secular for his own good, their excuses fell through soon enough.  His da went to mass when he felt like it, but he said his prayers every day without fail. Evenings in the Barnes household passed as such: his ma darned all that needed darning, Bucky and his sisters played the silly games children oft do, all the while his da read from his fire and brimstone prayerbook.

He had a rosary that was passed down the Barnes family line.  Years later, when Bucky chose baptism, his da gifted it to him.  It was lead pewter, beads worn to misshapen lumps. What the Soviets did to it after they found him, he’ll never know, if it lies frozen beneath the snow, or maybe at the bottom of a river.

Oh, but Bucky loved Hebrew school.  He adored it when his ma and his zayde spoke with him in the Ashkenazi tongue.  But, he was fascinated with Catholicism. His two heritages were balanced early in his life, but with Steve, something gave.

Steve has cornflower blue eyes, and a personality larger than anyone he’d met before.  He hasn’t the sense God gave a peanut, and he fights like a rabid dog when ornery, but Bucky loves him anyway.

In the beginning Bucky loved Steve in the all consuming way that only children are capable of.  That never went away, it transformed, of course, as the years went by. It turned into an infatuation.  It became something shameful, something to hide away. Then it became something to celebrate, but all too soon, it became nothing.

Bucky’s lived an entire lifetime without Steve, and it hurts.  It hurts so bad.

 

**With Friends Like These**

Gloria lays out a pillow and blanket on the couch, and Bucky says goodbye to Steve outside the front door.  Keys jingling in his grip, Steve’s hands shake again, but he doesn’t try to hide it this time, he’s too distracted.

He’s so earnest when he says,  “I want to see you again, soon, Bucky.  Please say yes.” Bucky is loath to disappoint him.

He takes Steve’s hands in his, stilling their shaking.  “It’s too dangerous,” he says, and it’s conciliatory. It isn’t enough.

“I can take anything, that’s already been well established,”  Steve pleads, squeezing Bucky’s hands painfully, but it isn’t the pain of his bones creaking that brings him near to tears, it’s the hurt of what Steve just implied.  They’re not good for each other, at least not now.

A sigh leaves his lips.  “I hurt you, I don’t want that to happen again.”

“You’re hurting me now, can’t you see that?”  Steve closes his eyes, a deep furrow appearing between his brows.  “I’m sorry, but I’m not afraid of you, I never have been, I never will be.”

“That’s dangerous, Stevie.”

Steve’s nose scrunches up tight.  “You seem fine to me,” he says, and Bucky is viciously glad that Steve did not see him before he regained his name, and his senses.  If he could watch the cold, clinical way the soldier put a bullet his skull, maybe he would change his mind. Or maybe it wouldn't change anything at all.

Steve sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat.  “I’m not one to run from a fight.” He leans in and presses a lingering kiss to Bucky’s cheek.  “I’ll see you soon.”

Bucky touches his cheek.  He stays where he is long after Steve has left, wondering if their friendship has always been such a battlefield.

That night he sleeps on the Bells’ lumpy couch, and never stirs once, it’s the best rest he’s had in weeks.  He can’t bring himself to regret the choices he made today, nor the people he hurt. If that makes him selfish, then yes, Bucky supposes he is selfish.

He wakes in the morning to the smell of frying eggs.  Climbing out from under the covers, he finds Marcel at the stove, humming away to a song on the radio.

“Hey, you’re awake,”  he says when Bucky joins him in the kitchen.  “Gloria left you a spare toothbrush in the bathroom.”  Bucky goes where Marcel directs, and begins his morning ablutions.  

Scrubbing at the scruff growing on his chin, he notices that as well as a toothbrush, Gloria has provided a disposable razor.

Bucky looks at himself in the mirror, and recalls the soldier practicing a smile.  Thinking back, he realizes the soldier was never successful. Bucky pictures the people in this apartment, the life and connections he has build for himself in Brooklyn; feeding Bear milk in the evenings, the old lady at the grocers, Aiden's diner, the work he did at the dry cleaners.  Hell, he even looks back fondly on Kolya. He thinks about it all, and tries for a smile.

“What’s so funny?”  Trevor asks from the doorway, already dressed in his school clothes.  Bucky must look like a maniac, smiling at himself in the mirror.

“Your face,”  Bucky says, which has Trevor grinning brightly,  “Want to watch me shave?” Trevor sticks out his tongue, but he looks intrigued.  Holding out his arms, Bucky picks him up, and deposits him on the counter. “First things first, don’t ever give yourself a goatee.”

A few minutes later, he leaves the bathroom freshly shaved, a giggling Trevor tucked under his arm, their stomachs growling.

There’s a platter of toast waiting for him at the breakfast table, an extra chair crammed in among the three others.  Gloria is already eating, Judith still sleeping, and Marcel’s spooning eggs from a pan to his plate. Bucky joins them, depositing Trevor in his chair.  He notices a spot of shaving cream above Trevor’s lip where Bucky had smeared some to his insistence, and wipes it off with his sleeve.

He takes a plate of eggs from Marcel and sits at the crammed table.  Trevor’s already shaking some sort of sugary monstrosity into a bowl, splashing milk on top, both in the bowl, and on the table cloth.

“Tommy up and moved to Jersey,”  Marcel says casually, sliding in next to Bucky,  “And the bosses are opening another site down by the beach.  We could always use more labour.”

Bucky stares at the gingham tablecloth, warmth bubbling in his heart.  “I don’t know what happened to my work boots.”

“They’re in my closet, along with all your stuff,”  Marcel says sheepishly, and when Bucky turns to him in surprise, he shrugs.  “I got good at picking locks when I was a kid, ask Gloria.”

Gloria hums, a faint smile on her face.  “So good.”

“You didn’t have to,”  Bucky says, glad he removed his security gear before he left,  “But thank you. Thank you so much, for everything you’ve done for me.”

“It’s no problem,”  Marcel says, smiling.  “You’re my friend.”

“You’re free babysitting,”  Gloria says wryly.

“Mrg wrhg fargh,”  Trevor says looking distinctively like a chipmunk.

Bucky throws his head back in laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment, I read them all!


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